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China and Japan in The Late Meiji Period (Urs Zachman) PDF
China and Japan in The Late Meiji Period (Urs Zachman) PDF
China and Japan in The Late Meiji Period (Urs Zachman) PDF
The first war between China and Japan in 1894 95 was one of the most fateful
events, not only in modern Japanese and Chinese history, but in interna-
tional history as well. The war and subsequent events catapulted Japan on its
trajectory toward temporary hegemony in East Asia, whereas China entered
a long period of domestic unrest and foreign intervention. Repercussions of
these developments can be still felt, especially in the mutual perceptions of
Chinese and Japanese people today. However, despite considerable scholarship
on Sino Japanese relations, the perplexing question remains as to how the
Japanese attitude exactly changed after the triumphant victory in 1895 over
its former role model and competitor.
This book examines the transformation of Japan’s attitude toward China
up to the time of the Russo Japanese War (1904 05), when the psychological
framework within which future Chinese Japanese relations worked reached
its completion. It shows the transformation process through a close reading
of sources, a large number of which are introduced to the scholarly discus-
sion for the first time. Zachmann demonstrates how modern Sino Japanese
attitudes were shaped by a multitude of factors, domestic and international,
and, in turn, informed Japan’s course in international politics.
Providing a nuanced interpretation of the shifting power dynamics between
China and Japan in late Meiji times, this book is essential reading for stu-
dents and scholars interested in getting to grips with the complexities of this
key East Asian bilateral relationship.
Through addressing ideas about history and politics in the modern period,
and by encouraging comparative and inter-disciplinary work amongst East
Asian specialists, the Leiden Series on Modern East Asian History and Politics
seeks to combine Area Studies’ focus on primary sources in the vernacular,
with a distinct disciplinary edge.
The Leiden Series focuses on philosophy, politics, political thought, his-
tory, the history of ideas, and foreign policy as they relate to modern East
Asia, and will emphasise theoretical approaches in all of these fields. As well
as single-authored volumes, edited or multi-authored submissions that bring
together a range of country specialisations and disciplines are welcome.
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Conclusion 153
Notes 163
Bibliography 211
Index 232
Acknowledgements
Writing this book would have been impossible without the help of many
people and institutions. It is my great pleasure to acknowledge this fact and
to extend my heartfelt thanks, first and foremost to my advisor for the original
PhD thesis, Professor Wolfgang Schamoni (Heidelberg), who has encouraged
me on my way with unstinting support, good advice, and never-flagging enthu-
siasm. I am also greatly indebted to Professor Akira Iriye (Harvard University)
for a wonderful half-year of research in Harvard, his willingness to act as the
second reader for my thesis and his generous advice and support throughout.
Research for this book has been conducted in various places, and during
my progress, I have encountered much help and advice, for which I am
greatly indebted to: Professor Rudolf Wagner (Heidelberg) for his help in
the initial phase of my PhD; Professor Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit (Freie
Universität Berlin) for being my host at the German Institute for Japanese
Studies (DIJ), Tokyo, and providing me with ideal working conditions and
kind support; Professor Yasumaru Yoshio (Hitotsubashi University) for his
wise advice in comments and conversations during and after his seminar at
Waseda; Professor Andrew Gordon (Harvard) for accepting me into an
inspiring seminar during my stay in Harvard; Professor Obinata Sumio
(Waseda University) for repeatedly acting as my advisor at Waseda and
generously sharing his profound knowledge with me; to Professor Wolfgang
Seifert and Professor Gotelind Müller-Saini (Heidelberg) for their kind co-
operation in the last phase of my PhD and their help and encouragement;
and, finally, to Professor Klaus Vollmer and my colleagues in Munich for
their great patience and goodwill while I was still busying myself with this
book. To all I extend my heartfelt gratitude.
I am also greatly indebted to Professor Paul A. Cohen (Fairbank Center
for Chinese Studies, Harvard University) and Professor Watanabe Hiroshi
(Tokyo University), who have kindly read the manuscript and given me their
very helpful comments and criticism. I also thank the two anonymous readers
for Routledge for their comments. Needless to say that, for all the remaining
errors, I take sole responsibility.
The following institutions have made this book possible through grants
and fellowships: Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, Deutsches Institut für
x Acknowledgements
Japanstudien (Tokyo), Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science. I thank these institutions for their generosity as well.
Most important of all has been the constant support of my parents, Dieter
and Brigitte Zachmann, to whom I dedicate this book with immense gratitude.
A short note on conventions: Japanese and Chinese names are rendered in
their usual order, with the family name preceding the given name. Chinese
names and words are transcribed according to the Pinyin system. Translations
are my own, if not otherwise indicated.
Munich, December 2008
Abbreviations
Numbers after the abbreviations refer to volume and page numbers, respectively;
e.g. ‘KKZ 6:223’ means ‘Kuga Katsunan zenshu-, Vol. 6, p. 223.’
Introduction
The Sino Japanese War of 1894 95 and its aftermath led to a fundamental
reversal of power relations in East Asia and lastingly changed Japan’s atti-
tude toward China and the world. The energies that fuelled the shock-like
transformation did not spring up spontaneously, but had accumulated over
centuries in a gradual and complex process, the beginnings of which reach
back into the pre-modern condition of Sino Japanese relations. On the Japa-
nese side, the relations betray an ambiguous and complex attitude towards
China, in both its cultural and its political dimension. Already during the
Tokugawa period (1603 1867), the two dimensions were separate, and the
gap became even wider during the frist decades of the Meiji period (1868
1912), when Japan modernized along Western lines and openly challenged
China’s political role in East Asia. This chapter gives a brief outline of Sino-
Japanese relations from the Tokugawa period until the eve of the Sino Japanese
War, and describes the complex and ambiguous process by which Chinese
culture could maintain a high social status in Japan, while China’s political
role gradually changed from studiously ignored neighbor-empire to Japan’s
open rival in the East and enemy of civilization per se.
Western civilization
If Chinese culture had been the prime foreign stimulus and reference stan-
dard of civilization for Japan during most of the Tokugawa period, this role
was completely taken over by Western civilization in the Meiji period.61
However, Chinese learning still retained its high status and significance. In
fact, despite the conflicts described above, at least in the cultural realm, ‘modern’
Western knowledge and classical Chinese learning co-existed peacefully, albeit
for different purposes and functions.
Western civilization in the Meiji period constituted the technocratic knowl-
edge necessary to qualify as a ‘civilized nation’ and be accepted as an equal
by the Western power. In this respect, Western knowledge fulfilled the same
function as Chinese knowledge had done vis-à-vis China and Korea in Toku-
gawa times. Thus it is significant that the word bunmei, when used without
further specification in the Meiji period, now invariably came to refer to Western
civilization. Moreover, like Chinese culture before, Western civilization was now
considered as being universal and therefore essentially transferable to Japan.
Benedict Anderson once argued that the European idea of the nation after 1820
became ‘modular,’ capable of being transplanted to a great variety of social
terrains, such as Japan.62 If this is true for the nation as a cultural ‘module,’ it is
even more so for the concept of European civilization in Japan in general.63
One of the most famous examples for such a modular or universalist
understanding is Fukuzawa Yukichi’s Outline of a Theory of Civilization
(Bunmei-ron no gairyaku) of 1875.64 However, to quote a less well known but
nonetheless representative example: in 1884, Hinohara Sho-zo- (1853 1904), a
close associate of Fukuzawa, was stationed as a bank’s representative in the
world’s financial capital, London. From there, he contributed reports and
articles to Fukuzawa’s newspaper, one of which appeared in November 1894
under the title ‘Japan must not be an Oriental country.’65 On the occasion of
the Sino-French War, Hinohara explained to his readers the European view
of Asia, and especially insisted that the concepts of ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ were
cultural rather than geographical ideas and thus universal, quoting the
hypothetical example of the Ottoman empire:
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 19
Generally speaking, Europeans call all countries in the East [To-yo--koku],
without distinction, ‘Oriental’ [‘Orientaru’] and they call its people Orien-
tals [To-yo-jin]. When they draw a clear line between themselves and the
others and establish boundaries, they do not rely on the nomenclature of
natural geography, but they speak of ‘Western countries’ or ‘Oriental
countries’ according to the characteristics of man-made society. [ … ]
Therefore, what people today call ‘the Orient’ is not the geographic
Orient, but refers to the Orient of international relations. It is not an
entity defined by natural geography, but it is called Oriental because all
institutions of man-made society in a uniquely singular way differ from
Europe. [ … ] Therefore, supposed the Turkish Empire would change all
things of their society, from the political system, law, religion, science
etc. down to everyday clothing, food, housing, and transform everything
into the European style, there is no doubt that nobody would consider it
Oriental anymore, and that from that day on [Constantinople] would be
added to the capitals of the great countries in Europe.66
Thus Hinohara argued that ‘Europe’ was wherever a society conformed to its
standard, much in the same way as Tokugawa intellectuals located ‘China’
wherever a society met the standards of the Chinese civilization. Conse-
quently, Hinohara in his article never leaves a doubt that Japan, by adopting
European ways, could become part of civilized and strong ‘Europe.’
Hinohara’s argument, especially his example of the Ottoman empire,
strikes the reader as oversimplistic and even outright naive, mostly because it
does not consider the limitations that racism and religious prejudice imposed
on the ‘modularity’ of Western civilization and the upward mobility of non-
European nations (this, after all, was the function of discrimination in
international relations). Hinohara, of course, could not have missed this
aspect. After all, he was reporting from London at the height of British jin-
goism (the British public at the time was greatly agitated by the Sudan
Crisis), and at home the Japanese public was vehemently denouncing the
Western powers’ unwillingness to accept Japanese jurisdiction over foreigners
as discriminatory.
In fact, Hinohara’s seemingly naive optimism must be seen as a rather
deliberate act of denial so typical for the Japanese stance at the time. Thus,
whenever racial or religious prejudice threatened Japan’s position, this was
routinely countered by an even stronger insistence on the universality of
civilization and followed by an even greater effort to show off Japan as a
civilized nation. We will observe this especially after the Sino Japanese War,
when Japan became a conceivable threat to the Western powers and thus
increasingly the object of racialist invective. The rationale behind Japan’s
insistence on universality was, of course, to forestall any attempts to dis-
qualify Japan on grounds which were outside its power and ensure that
Japan had at least the theoretical chance of reaching equality or even
attaining superiority in the ‘competition of civilization’ (bunmei kyo-so-).
20 China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period
Already, at this point, it should be made clear that the Western powers,
although setting the standard of universal civilization, were not considered
to be Japan’s direct competitors, yet. This was rather a development of the
postwar years, as we shall see presently. In fact, if there was a competitor in
the ‘race of civilization’ during the early Meiji, it was China, which had its
own ‘self-strengthening movement’ (ziqiang yundong), and showed signs of
progress as well, although this was mainly concentrated on military for-
tification.67 Of these, Japanese contemporaries were well aware. Thus Japa-
nese newspapers throughout the 1870s repeatedly warned their readers lest
they underestimated China’s strength or potential of modernization, and
betrayed a certain insecurity as to Japan’s advantage in the race. On the
occasion of a Chinese warship’s visiting the port of Nagasaki in 1875, the
To-kyo nichinichi shinbun clearly presented China as a worthy rival whose
potential was virtually unknown. The Yu-bin ho-chi shinbun in 1878 impressed
the same warning on its readers, adding the observation that the sluggishness
of China’s modernization also meant that China was saving up its energies,
whereas Japan’s rapid reforms ultimately remained shallow.68 Finally, a
similar morale can be gathered from a caricature in the popular satirical
magazine Marumaru chinbun in 1879, entitled (in English) ‘Walking Match
of Civilization.’69 The picture shows a race track inscribed with the English
word ‘civilization’ on which swift small Japan is nimbly running ahead, while
big, burly and awkward China has troubles to follow. Of course, Japan is
way ahead and the spectators are cheering for Japan while jeering at China.
However, the comments also show the concern that Japan, at this speed, may
trip and take a fall.70 Thus, until the Sino Japanese War, there was still some
insecurity as to the outcome of the ‘walking match.’
Chinese learning
While Japan was in the pursuit of ‘modern’ civilization, Chinese culture in
the meantime did not lose its significance, either. However, its function changed
from the formerly ‘modern education’ to ‘classical accomplishments.’ Chinese
ethics also became the repository of a set of ‘classical’ values for the education
of the good Meiji citizen.
Donald Keene has observed that literature proved the medium that pre-
served much of Japan’s reverence for Chinese culture in Meiji times.71 Erudition
in classical Chinese language and literature, especially the ability to produce
good Chinese poems (kanshi), remained a sign of high cultural accomplish-
ment. It has been observed that ‘probably never since the Nara Period had
there been such a vogue for composition in that language.’72 Moreover, it
was a vogue not limited to literary circles: newspapers, especially the extra
large issues around New Year, abounded with kanshi on all sorts of subjects.
People of a surprising variety were highly erudite in Chinese literature or turned
out to be real kanshi aficionados. The most popular kanshi were written by
the politician Saigo- Takamori and General Nogi Maresuke.73 Nakamura
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 21
Keiu (Masanao), the translator of Samuel Smiles’ Self-Help, became Pro-
fessor for Chinese literature at the Tokyo Imperial University in 1880. Ito-
Hirobumi was an impassioned kanshi diletteur. The influential journalist
Kuga Katsunan, who will figure prominently in the following chapters, is
known for his kanshi, and the famous kanshi poet Kokubu Seigai con-
tributed to his newspaper Nippon.74 Finally, the novelist Natsume So-seki is
considered as the ‘outstanding kanshi poet of the Meiji era.’75
As in Tokugawa times, Chinese belles-lettres continued to serve as a
medium for international communication. Thus members of the Chinese
embassies since 1877 were fêted and lionized by the Sinophile Meiji society.76
The conversation between the Japanese hosts and their honored guests was
in Chinese, but on paper, the so-called ‘brush-talk’ (hitsudan). In this sense,
the ‘same culture’ (do-bun), which was so often invoked in Sino Japanese con-
versations to conjure up a spirit of solidarity, did have a reality in the ‘same
writing’ they used for communication. However, as we shall see presently,
above and beyond this, the spirit of solidarity remained a somewhat tenuous
concept and often stood in stark contrast to the Japanese sentiments betrayed
toward the real China or to Chinese permanently residing in Japan.
Chinese learning was not only an elegant pastime of the elite, but also the
subject of regular education. Margaret Mehl, in a recent study on private
academies for Chinese learning in the Meiji period, has shown that the Chi-
nese academies in the early Meiji period even had ‘something of a heyday’
and that they went into decline only in the 1890s, with the consolidation of
the modern education system that stressed Western knowledge.77 However,
even afterwards, Chinese learning retained an important function in educa-
tion. Already in 1881, the bureaucrat and future minister of education Inoue
Kowashi proposed to promote Chinese studies in education to instill ‘the
Way of loyalty to ruler, love of country, and allegiance.’78 Later, Inoue and
the Confucian scholar Motoda Nagazane played a major role in drafting the
Imperial Rescript on Education (promulgated in October 1890), which is
seen as the most prominent expression of the neo-conservative tendencies
since the late 1880s.79 Not surprisingly, the Rescript had a strong emphasis
on Confucian morality, especially the cardinal virtues of loyalty and filial
piety. Thus Chinese ethics was reinstituted as the vehicle of moral education
for the ‘good’ Meiji citizen and became an island of Chinese universality
within the sea of Western ‘universal’ knowledge.
Thus Chinese learning, despite the massive adoption of Western knowl-
edge, retained a relatively high standing in Meiji society. It is sometimes argued
that, in the late Meiji period, this combination was enlarged by a third strand
of Japanese nationalism. Kenneth B. Pyle observed a neo-conservative trend
among ‘the new generation’ of Meiji intellectuals, such as Nipponjin edi-
tors Miyake Setsurei (1860 1945) and Shiga Shigetaka (1863 1927), who,
during the treaty revisions debate 1889 94, advocated the ‘preservation of
the national essence’ (kokusui hozon); and Takayama Chogyu- (1871 1902)
who, among others, after the Sino Japanese War propagated the concept of
22 China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period
‘Japanism’ (Nippon-shugi).80 However, it would be wrong to understand
these nationalist expressions as a challenge to Western or Chinese learning.
Firstly, they were limited in personal scope and intention (to a particular
political issue or to a certain group). Secondly, they were diffuse in con-
tent and had neither the philosophical depth nor breadth to constitute a
‘Japanese’ alternative to Western or Chinese learning. But most of all, they
did not aspire to do so. As we have seen above (and as the following chapters
demonstrate), the majority of the Japanese public saw Japan firmly grounded
in a universalistic frame of ‘civilization’ which did not allow for any anti-
Western tendencies, did not exclude Chinese learning either, but certainly did
not want to situate Japan uniquely outside the universalist frame. Any
attempt to do so met fierce public censure and was hastily aborted. Thus
Meiji nationalism should be understood not as a challenge, but rather as
an expression within the framework of knowledge that constituted Meiji
universalism.81
Domestic politics
With more than 5000 people, the Chinese constituted the largest foreign
community in Japan shortly before the outbreak of the Sino Japanese War.83
However, the Sino Japanese Treaty of Amity of 1871 stipulated that Chi-
nese, like other foreigners, reside in the designated treaty ports. Within this
circumscribed radius of action, the Chinese maintained a self-governing com-
munity, although there existed some degree of integration through inter-
marriage, unofficial liaisons and adoption (of Japanese children).84 Most of
the Chinese residents were laborers, although the rich merchants, who con-
trolled much of Japan’s trade with Asia before the Sino Japanese War, also
busied the public imagination.
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 23
Considering the relatively small and contained number of Chinese in
Japan, the degree to which their presence was problematized in the ‘mixed
residence’ debate seems to be out of proportion and irrational. Yet it was one
of the most controversial subjects in the debate during the 1880s and 1890s,
which continued well after all other issues had been resolved.85 The debate
reflects very well the popular attitude towards Chinese at the time. Of course,
one argument for the majority’s resistance against Chinese residing in the
interior of Japan may have reflected merely non-specific xenophobia, as
Chinese constituted the archetype of the foreigner since Tokugawa times.86
Secondly, the country’s image as a backward, ‘oriental’ nation on the whole
certainly reflected on its citizens, and gave rise to the usual array of pre-
judices such as lack of hygiene, poverty and stinginess, lack of education and
morals etc. and, specifically Chinese, the ‘filthy habit’ of opium smoking.87
However, an even more powerful motive for rejection was fear aroused by
the alleged strengths of the Chinese, with which the average Meiji citizen felt
the Japanese could not compete. Thus, as late as 1898, the journalist and
politician Hara Takashi (1856 1921) in his guide book Preparing for the
Implementation of the New Treaties named as the principal concerns of the
people about ‘mixed residence’ with Chinese that, in the event, cheap Chi-
nese laborers would flood the Japanese market and drive out the Japanese,
and that Chinese businessmen, with their shrewd sense and unscrupulous
practices, would eventually monopolize and take over the Japanese econ-
omy.88 The Jiji shinpo-, too, opposed ‘mixed residence’ with Chinese on the
same grounds, likening it in the newspaper’s accustomed predilection for
strong similes to ‘letting a cat loose in a fish market.’89
From this, it becomes apparent that the Japanese popular attitude toward
Chinese was not merely condescension, as is so often claimed, but also concern
about not being able to stand the competition.
International politics
The same sense of competition also pervaded the early Meiji outlook on
international politics. Generally, political thought in the early Meiji period
was dominated by the belief that strife in international affairs was inevi-
table.90 Thus the journalist Kuga Katsunan in 1893 began his Treatise on
International Politics (Kokusai-ron) with the words:
In the feudal times of yore, people cherished justice, helped the weak
and crushed the strong. If they saw somebody else in distress or danger,
they shied away neither from fire nor water, but sacrificed their lives
without regret.96
The same article criticized the blind egoism of the age as expressed in the
phrases jakuniku kyo-shoku and yu-sho- reppai (‘the strong win, the weak lose’)
which betrayed a mean, ‘merchant-like spirit’ (sho-nin-teki kishitsu) calculat-
ing on investment and return, whereas chivalry was the natural expression of
the ‘warrior-spirit’ (bujin-teki kishitsu), which took to action not minding the
danger nor possible reward. This attitude, irrespective of its label, was
strongly rooted in the oppositional political thought throughout the Meiji
period. However, it is evident that, despite the highfalutin rhetoric, the
‘warrior-spirit’ was of course as militant as or, for lack of sobriety, even
more dangerous than the realist attitude. Thus, instead of power politics,
many idealists came to advocate strong-arm politics, and it is no coincidence
that the ranks of the ‘strong foreign-policy advocates’ (taigai ko-ha) swelled
with them.97
As China was Japan’s immediate competitor during the early Meiji
period, not only politically but also in terms of ‘civilization’ (including mili-
tary preparations), it is not surprising that Japanese intellectuals applied
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 25
their respective credos towards China. The case of the realists is straightfor-
ward; in particular, Fukuzawa Yukichi’s agitation for war is well known and
needs no further discussion.98 However, as in many other cases, the idealist
stance did not lead to different results. Ironically, the ‘chivalry’ argument is
often cited in scholarly literature as a source of Japanese pan-Asianist senti-
ment, imagining Japan as a leader of the oppressed Asian countries against
the West.99 This, however, overlooks the fact that, prior to the Sino Japanese
War, China was deemed to be the chief oppressor in East Asia, and thus an
object of resistance. This was partly the case in the Ryu-kyu- conflict, but
especially so in the case of Korea.100 A famous incident of ‘chivalrous’
- -
action is the so-called Osaka Incident in 1885, when Oi Kentaro- and other
People’s Rights partisans planned to help the ousted Korean politician Kim
Ok-kyun by collecting money and weapons and setting off to Korea with a
party of shishi to fight for Korea’s ‘independence’ against China.101 Later, in
1894, a secret group of Gen’yo-sha-braves called Ten’yu-kyo- (the ‘chivalrous
men of heaven-sent assistance’) again set off to Korea to support the Tonghak
rebels, only to be ousted by Japanese police forces.102 And, as we shall see
presently, the Sino Japanese War was popularly considered a ‘just war’ for
the sake of Korea.
If competition and ‘chivalry’ made pan-Asianist solidarity with China
difficult, an alliance with China seemed impolitic or even impossible the more
intense the Sino Japanese conflict became. Thus, in 1879, we can still
observe instances of newspaper editorials advocating an alliance.103 How-
ever, in the 1880s such a view became increasingly untenable. Former foreign
minister Soejima Taneomi (1828 1905), for example, rejected the idea of a
Sino Japanese alliance in 1885 with the standard reference to the relentless
competition in the international arena; Soejima rather advocated war: ‘To
wage war in order to make one’s country strong is the highest justice and
loyalty to country and ruler.’104 In 1888, it was argued that Sino Japanese
friendship was possible only after a war had decided who the ‘leader of the
Far East’ (To-yo- no meishu) would be.105 In 1893, Tarui To-kichi (1850 1922),
-
an ‘Asianist’ who was involved in the Osaka Incident, in his Daito- gappo--ron
(‘On the merger into a Greater East Asia’) did envision an alliance with
China at some point in time, but only after Japan had merged with Korea to
form a ‘Greater East Asia.’106 Thus neither hardliners nor ‘Asian-minded men’
considered China a likely alliance partner as long as the race was still on.
Competition, it was said, reached its temporary climax in 1884 85, when
China fought a war with France over suzerainty in Vietnam on the one
hand, and a Japanophile faction used the opportunity to stage a coup d’état
in Korea, only to be ousted by Chinese soldiers a few days later. Japanese
public agitation at the time likewise reached its maximum and seethed with
ill-will against China. Public reactions to the Sino-French War functioned as
an argumentative rehearsal, as it were, for Japan’s own confrontation with
China.107 Thus many commentators defended France’ actions and showed
little or no sympathy for China’s position.108 France’s position in Vietnam
26 China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period
was consciously likened to Japan’s dealings with Korea, and China’s some-
what belated claims of suzerainty over its ‘tributary state’ (zokuho-) Vietnam
were rejected with much vehemence, arguing that if China dared to do the
same in the case of Korea, this would mean not only going back on its word,
as it had already acknowledged Korea’s independence, but also heaping
shame and insult on Japan.109 Apart from this strategic identification with
France, commentators hoped for China’s defeat for various other, even con-
flicting reasons: egoistically speaking, it would weaken China and thus slow
down the arms race with Japan.110 On the other hand, it was altruistically
argued that defeat would teach China ‘a good lesson’ and spur it on to
modernize faster. This rather specious argument was ventured by Fukuzawa
Yukichi, and neatly summarized by the North-China Herald as follows:
As we shall see in the following chapters, the same argument was conspicuously
absent when Japan actually fought China, but regained much currency in the
postwar years. Finally, and most importantly, China’s weakness and defeat
only vindicated the politicized image of China and let Japan’s virtues shine
forth even brighter.
‘Oriental’ China
Considering the above antagonism, it is only natural to assume that the same
would translate into a politicized image of China, which showed its greatest
contrast and brilliance in times when political tension was at its highest. And
as expected, the crisis years of 1884 85 saw the perfection of China’s image
as the stereotypical ‘political enemy.’ In the following decade of relative
tranquility, this image receded somewhat into the background, but returned
with full vengeance in the Sino Japanese War.
Carl Schmitt once famously described the political enemy as being ‘simply
the Other, the Alien [der Fremde], and as to his characteristics, it is enough
that he is something different and alien in an especially intensive way, so that
in extreme cases conflicts with him are made possible which cannot be deci-
ded by a general normative provision in advance or by the arbitration of an
“uninvolved” and therefore “impartial” third party.’112 This definition describes
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 27
very well the structure and strategic function of China’s image in the course
of the Sino Japanese conflict. Thus commentators at the time invariably
insisted on China being the complete opposite of what Japan was supposed
to be, denouncing China as the archetype of oriental retrogression, whereas
Japan assumed the Lichtgestalt of enlightened civilization and progress in
East Asia.113 The most famous example of this today is Fukuzawa Yukichi’s
editorial ‘On leaving Asia behind’ (‘Datsua ron’), which appeared in March
1885. In the editorial, Fukuzawa vilified China and Korea as lawless auto-
cracies, its people infatuated and completely adverse to (scientific) progress,
mean, shameless and cruel.114 Illustrations in the Jiji shinpo-, incidentally,
carried the same message.115 However, it should be mentioned that, although
the Jiji shinpo- was more constant than other newspapers in ‘bashing’ China,
Fukuzawa’s characterization was hardly excessive if seen in the context of
the time. Uchimura Kanzo- (1861 1930), for example, who had a worldview
completely different from Fukuzawa’s, described China’s and Japan’s role
with the following strong words: ‘We interfere with Korea because her inde-
pendence is in jeopardy, because the world’s most backward nation is
grasping it in her benumbing coils, and savagery and inhumanity reign there
when light and civilization are at her very doors.’116
Three aspects of the process of fashioning China into the stereotypical
‘political enemy’ deserve our special attention: firstly, the antipodal portrait
of China and Japan strikingly ignores the competition going on between the
two and the fact that Japan’s victory in the ‘match of civilization’ was not yet
an established fact. However, such images were cherished not for their vera-
city, but for their emotive quality, and they drew considerably on wishful
thinking at the time. Secondly, the image of China and Korea shows a
striking resemblance to ‘orientalist’ disourses in the West. If we compare, for
example, the above image with the image of Egypt as it appeared in Sir
Evelyn Baring’s (1841 1917) description Modern Egypt, there, too, the
Egyptian is shown as being irrational, weak, dishonest, cruel, etc., in short,
everything opposite to the alleged qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race.117
However, this, too, is not so surprising. After all, Western ‘orientalist’ dis-
course was known well enough in Japan. Articles such as Hinohara Sho-zo-’s
‘Japan must not be an Oriental country’ or Fukuzawa’s ‘On leaving Asia
behind’ (which must be seen as a short version of Hinohara’s article118) are
troubled accounts of these. And although China may have had a negative
image in Japan even prior to the introduction of this image, the Meiji period
certainly saw a synchronization of this image with Western ‘orientalist’ dis-
course.119 After all, Western ideological images of the ‘Orient’ had the same
structure and strategic function vis-à-vis Asian countries.
Finally, Japan’s image of China most strikingly illustrates how profoundly
the presence of a Western spectator affected Japan’s attitude towards China
in substance. Thus the main concern of Fukuzawa’s ‘On leaving Asia behind’
actually is not Japan’s relations with China, but with the West, and the
danger that Japan and China in ‘the eyes of the civilized Western people’
28 China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period
(seiyo- bunmei-jin no me120) looked too similar, which in turn would greatly
disaffect Japan’s relations with the Western powers. This was not a mere
illusion, as we have seen in the instance of Western protest against the Sino
Japanese Treaty of Amity 1871, and as we shall see recurrently in the fol-
lowing chapters. Thus it must be seen as a leitmotiv in Japan’s China policy
to draw a line between itself and China in the eyes of the West, and self-
consciously to distance itself from its neighbor. Already in 1884, Hinohara
spelt this out with almost staggering aggressiveness:
Now, I want to change the direction of the argument and ask the reader
this: do you wish to remain in the position of an Oriental [To-yo-jin] for a
long time and in the future forever suffer the shameful subjugation and
reign of the Europeans? Or do you wish, if that was possible, to leave the
boundaries of Asia, join the ranks of Europe and America, and thereby
evade all future sorrows? Some people may say: ‘The principles of free-
dom are gradually being practiced in the world, the idea of universal
brotherhood and equality of all countries will soon become reality [ … ]
Therefore, even if we are located in Asia, why should we fear of suffering
unreasonably at the hands of the Europeans? Bending the rules of justice
by the use of brute force and oppressing the meek by military force, such
are the practices of barbarian countries of the distant past and is not
likely to happen in these days of the nineteenth century.’ Alas, what
blindness! Even if we accept the fact that liberalism is practiced in the
world, that a plan for a Peaceful Congregation of Nations does exist, that
among scholars there are not a few who propagate the theories of universal
brotherhood and the equality of nations and so forth, this liberalism,
this Peaceful Congregation of Nations, this universal brotherhood and
equal rights of nations is carried out solely within the realms of Europe
and does not yet apply to other regions. [ … ] Therefore, we must be aware
that, as long as we are content to be counted among [the countries of]
the Orient or Asia, we will suffer at the hands of the Europeans. Are you,
honored readers, aware of this fact? [ … ] I hear that there are people
who for some unfathomable reason have founded a Raising Asia Society
[Ko-a-kai],121 and plan to ally with the countries of Asia to resist Europe
at any cost. Why must I revive Asia and resist Europe? Whether the
whole Asian continent, is crushed, shattered or goes to ruins has nothing
to do with us. We have to maintain the independence of our country
Japan and ensure the welfare of our people. Even if the Chinese Empire
is taken over by France and the Indian natives enslaved by the British,
as long as Japan does not share the same fate, there is nothing to be
sorry about. [ … ] I hope that in opposition to the Raising Asia Society,
somebody will establish a Leaving Asia Society [Datsua-kai].122
Thus the fear of being bundled together with China (whether as a common
threat or a common prey for the Western powers) certainly did not help to
China in the Tokugawa and early Meiji period 29
ease the tensions with China. In fact, it has been repeatedly argued that the
Sino Japanese War was, apart from its strategic objectives, also consciously
designed as an ‘advertising campaign’ to demonstrate to the Western powers
the real and substantive difference between China and Japan.123 Japan’s
participation in the Boxer expedition had a similar rationale, as we shall see,
although by then the difference between China and Japan was already taken
for granted and China, actually, did not matter any more.
The Sino Japanese War of 1894 95 finally ended the mutual acquiescence
that had lasted for so long between China and Japan and, for the first time
in modern history, sent masses of Japanese soldiers to the continent. As
such, the event was monumental enough. However, it was also a watershed,
not only of Japanese and Chinese modern history, but of international history
in general. As the diplomatic historian William Langer observed, the war
‘marked the transition of the Far Eastern question from a state of quiescence
to one of extreme activity. From 1895 until 1905 the problems connected
with China and her future demanded the untiring vigilance of the European
powers. More and more they came to dominate the course of international
relations.’1 Although one could argue that, on the Sino Japanese side, the
state had been far from quiescent before the war, the scope and extent of its
repercussions certainly excelled everything experienced before in East Asia.
The factual side of the Sino Japanese War and its immediate aftermath
has been the subject of a number of detailed studies already, and for our
purpose only the briefest outline will suffice:2 At the beginning of June 1894,
on the occasion of the Tonghak riots, the Korean government requested
China to send military assistance and quell the uprising. China complied
and, after notifying Japan to this effect (as stipulated in the Tianjin Treaty),
dispatched its troops. However, Japan immediately responded by sending
troops of its own, allegedly for the protection of its nationals and diplomatic
personnel, although its size quadrupled the Chinese contingent.3 After this,
Japan’s rather provocative actions in Korea and towards China relentlessly
pushed the situation toward war. Finally, Japan declared war on China on
1 August 1894.
Although unexpected by most foreign observers, the development of the
war soon turned out to be immensely successful for Japan. In mid-September
1894 the Japanese navy defeated China’s Northern Fleet in the Yellow Sea
and Japan’s army won the battle of Pyongyang; in November Port Arthur on
the Liaodong Peninsula fell; and finally, in February 1895, Weihaiwei on the
Chinese coast was taken as well.
Already in spring 1895, representatives met, first in Hiroshima and then
in Shimonoseki, to negotiate a peace treaty, largely on Japan’s terms. On
32 The Sino Japanese War
17 April 1895, Li Hongzhang, Ito- Hirobumi and Mutsu Munemitsu signed
the Peace Treaty of Shimonoseki. The treaty stipulated China’s acknowl-
edgement of the independence of Korea, the payment of a large indemnity to
Japan, the cession of Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong Peninsula, as
well as a commercial section that granted Japan and the Western powers
considerable commercial privileges and opened new treaty ports in China.
Until full payment of the indemnity, Japan would keep its troops stationed in
Weihaiwei. The commercial section of the treaty very much pleased Britain;
the cession of Port Arthur, however, troubled Russia and Germany. Thus on 23
April 1895, less than a week after the Shimonoseki Treaty was signed,
Russia, France and Germany intervened and gave the ‘friendly advice’ (con-
seil amical) that Japan retrocede the Liaodong Peninsula for the sake of
peace and stability in East Asia. The Japanese government saw no other way
than to accept the advice and to inform the public of the fact by imperial
edict in mid-May. As a consequence of the Tripartite Intervention and the
changed political situation in East Asia, the Japanese government started the
so-called ‘postwar management’ (sengo keiei), at the center of which stood
an ambitious armament program of 10 years’ duration, and which had a
considerable impact on Japan’s foreign politics and domestic life in the
decade after the Sino Japanese War.
The case of ‘chivalry’ and civilization made here against China soon reap-
peared in the interwar years, when commentators began to take up Russia as
the new enemy, thus indicating the change of guards that took place during
the interwar years.
Interestingly, a third strand familiar from the Sino-French war, namely the
altruistic argument that the war would only serve as a healthy shock for
China, was conspicuously absent while the Sino Japanese War lasted.18 This
argument became the dominating justification only in the postwar years
when China’s defeat was evident and irreversible, thus illustrating the general
rule that Japan (as any other country) could afford to be generous towards a
rival country only in retrospect. While the war lasted, China was still the
enemy, and only by its defeat it could become a friend.
Although the public bristled with just indignation and called for war, it
met the actual fighting with some initial apprehension. After all, even prime
minister Ito- Hirobumi and other Japanese leaders had their doubts as to
whether the Japanese military was really a match for China.19 Numerically
speaking, there was ample reason for doubt: at the time of the Sino Japanese
War, China boasted a combined fleet of 82 warships and 25 torpedo boats
against 28 Japanese warships and 24 torpedo boats. Moreover, the 240,000
Japanese men who were deployed during the war (including organizational
units) met a Chinese army of 350,000 men, joined by another 650,000
The Sino Japanese War 35
recruited during the war.20 Thus, in the first days of fighting, the public
mood was far from exuberant, and Mutsu Munemitsu wryly observed that
the public went jingoist only after the decisive battles at Pyongyang and the
Yellow Sea in mid-September had been won.21
As the actual fighting showed, sheer numbers can be deceptive. Thus, since
the combined Chinese fleet was not under unified command, only a fraction
of it, 25 warships and 12 torpedo boats, actually met the Japanese fleet in
fighting. Moreover, in sea battle speed was of the essence, and in this respect
the Japanese mode of fighting far excelled the Chinese in terms of both
equipment and formation.22 Likewise, although the Chinese army eclipsed
the Japanese in numbers, mobilizing those numbers throughout the vast
empire and concentrating them on the battleground posed an almost insur-
mountable logistical problem. It has been argued that, since the Chinese
army was basically an army of mercenaries, it was inferior to the Japanese
conscription army in terms of both drill and fighting morale.23 Whatever the
reasons, the vast superiority of the Japanese army showed in the drastic dis-
parity of numbers of casualties: in the battle of Tianzhuangtai in March
1895, for example, 1000 Chinese soldiers died whereas Japanese casualties
amounted to 16.24
In total, too, the number of Japanese casualties was exceedingly low: until
November 1895 only 1132 of the 174,017 soldiers who had gone abroad died
in battle, most victims (11,894 soldiers) suffering death from indirect causes
such as infections or diseases, in the shadow of the public attention.25 In the
light of these facts, it is hardly surprising that after the first successes the
Japanese public exulted and declared that ‘the actual war was easier than
drill maneuvers’ (jissen wa enshu- yori mo yo-i).26 The impression was ampli-
fied by a stream of newspaper extras incessantly heralding new victories to
the public. Thus the war brought a windfall to the newspaper business, as
circulation numbers rose in equal proportion to the high tide of nationalist
wartime frenzy.27 The most colorful expression of this mood is found in the
immensely popular woodprints (nishiki-e) of heroic battle scenes.28 They
conveyed a feeling of almost superhuman power and invincibility, translating
the actual casualty ratio into pictures of, for example, five Chinese soldiers
falling to one Japanese soldier merely drawing his sword, and of whole Chi-
nese cities literally blown away by a single Japanese soldier.29 Thus Mutsu
Munemitsu observed, with some detestation: ‘the entire Japanese populace
now would heed no voice other than one that called for advancing further’.30
The public cheered the army on to advance Pekin made31 ‘to Beijing’ and
conclude a ‘peace treaty at the gates’ of the enemy (jo-ka no mei).
Once the Japanese public had come to know the ‘excitement’ of war, it did
not want it to end so soon. Thus, when the plenipotentiaries of China and
Japan met in Hiroshima in February 1895, and again in Shimonoseki in late
March to negotiate a peace treaty, there was the prevailing sentiment that
peace was still premature.32 Consequently, when peace was concluded in
Shimonoseki not at the ‘gates of the enemy’ on 17 April 1895, the public
36 The Sino Japanese War
was not elated. The Belgian minister to Japan, Albert d’Anethan, described
the atmosphere at the time as follows:
The news of the peace was received with very little enthusiasm in Tokyo.
There seems to be a general feeling of disappointment that Japanese
victories were not crowned with a triumphant entry into Peking. The
government was forced to suppress most capital newspapers, nearly all
of which contained articles condemning ‘the weakness of the negotia-
tors.’ When successes had been announced, the entire city had displayed
flags, and joy and animation had lit up all faces. Since yesterday there is
not a banner in the streets; all flags were removed at once. [There are] no
festivities; no rejoicing! Instead of cheerfulness which would seem nat-
ural; [there is] a despondency which assumes the proportions of national
mourning.33
Thus the premature timing of the Peace Treaty severely disappointed the
Japanese public and left it pining for the consummation of its hopes a
treaty at the gates of Beijing.
Public exuberance during the war was also manifested in heightened
expectations for the content of the Peace Treaty. Immediately after the first
decisive battles in mid-September 1894, a discussion began about the terms
of peace and what demands Japan should make of China. Although sugges-
tions varied widely, one recurring theme was the idea that the terms should
humiliate and cripple China, thereby humbling it and at the same time pre-
venting it from ever becoming a rival again.34 Moreover, the decisiveness of
the victories and the accompanying sense of power soon gave rise to dreams
of material gain which very much ran counter to the initial argument of a
‘just war’ solely fought for altruistic motives. More idealistically minded men
such as Uchimura Kanzo- and Naito- Konan (1866 1934) soon regretted having
justified the war on these grounds, and Uchimura famously called the Sino
Japanese War in retrospect an ‘avaricious war.’35 However, material gains,
too, could be justified in political terms. Kuga Katsunan, for example, in a very
early contribution to the discussion, argued that claiming reparations was based
on regular precedence in international law and served three functions: as
punitive damages excelling the actual expenditure for the war by about ten
times; as a subsidy to expand one’s own military preparations; and finally as
a measure to prevent future aggression by weakening the enemy country.
However, Katsunan repeatedly stressed that China’s notorious unreliability
and arrogance, especially towards Japan, necessitated special ‘securities,’ such
as the occupation of territories until all obligations had been met.36
Thus, whatever the uses of this phrase in the later course of Japanese history,
in the decade after the Sino Japanese War it was not used to call for an
aggressive foreign policy but, on the contrary, to defend the government’s
The Sino Japanese War 39
rather cautious policy. Hardliners of the opposition, on the other hand, would
cite the slogan ironically to attack the weak-kneed policy of the government.
Sino–Japanese relations
The public’s war enthusiasm, as we have seen, once it had been roused,
expressed itself in vilifications of the Chinese enemy with sometimes staggering
aggressiveness. However, it would be quite naive to take these expressions of
war jingoism at face value and as a sober judgment of Sino Japanese relations.
A closer look reveals that, immediately after the Sino Japanese War, Japanese
attitudes toward China remain far more ambiguous than expected.
There was, of course, the elated triumph of having defeated, against all
odds, the big continental power China. Newspapers compared this historic
event with Britain or Prussia defeating France, marveling that ‘a nation of
forty million people should be able to defeat a nation of four hundred mil-
lion people seems to be completely illogical.’48 Moreover, Japanese observers
were quick to take up China’s new nickname as the ‘Sick Man of the Far
East,’ again paralleling China’s case with the Ottoman empire.49 During the
war, both had been identified as the ‘common enemies of the world’ (sekai
no ko-teki).50
Not all sentiments expressed were inimical to China. For example, in
January 1895, in the midst of the war, the Rikken kaishinto--politician Ozaki
Yukio (1858 1954), who more than 10 years earlier had predicted the certain
collapse of the Chinese empire, now argued in the inaugural issue of the
magazine Taiyo- for a Sino Japanese alliance to be concluded after the war
(albeit not quite on equal terms).51 Moreover, China’s perceived misery soon
began to elicit first professions of condescending sympathy. Thus in June 1895
the Nippon declared that ‘We must hasten to China’s rescue.’52 The article
argued that Japan was a just and benevolent country which met courtesy
with courtesy and impudence with ‘exhortation.’ China was a ‘friend’ (yu-koku)
and repented its insolent behavior toward Japan. Japan should now exert its
(newly found) strength and assist its friend in overcoming its problems. As
we shall see, these professions of friendship in the course of postwar Sino
Japanese relations became more dominant the weaker and more irreversible
China’s international and domestic position became.
However, for the time being, the question of China’s real strength remained
somewhat elusive. True, the war had proven China’s military power far
inferior to Japan’s. Yet the Tripartite Intervention, which some interpreted as
a general breakdown of diplomacy, at least saw China in a winning position.53
This created the impression that, while Japan had won in the battlefield,
China had made good at the negotiation table, which somewhat redeemed
the image of China as a worthy opponent. Miyake Setsurei, co-editor of the
Nippon, wrote:
40 The Sino Japanese War
Learn the skills of diplomacy from China!
That China’s skills of warfare are poor, I have thought before, but that
they are like that, I have not dared to think.
That China’s skills of diplomacy are strong, I have thought before, but
that they are like that, I have not dared to think.
‘The chanchan bo-zu of China is a rather weak fellow’
That is absolutely true, but:
‘Li Hongzhang of China is a rather stupid fellow’
That is certainly a lie.
Thus, if we can teach them the skills of warfare, should we not learn
from them the skills of diplomacy?54
If China is being divided up and effaced from the political map as the
Chinese Empire, the influence of the Chinese race in the world from that
time on will increase even further. Once the Chinese, like the Jews, will
have lost their state, there is absolutely no doubt that, like them, they
will become parasites in every country of the world and will exercise
pressure and beneficence on the country where they temporarily reside,
at times as workers, at times as financiers, and at times as traders.
In any case, numerically speaking, they excel the Jews by fifty times.
Not to speak of their racial characteristics which will set the world
atremble!60
Our duty as a nation lies nowhere else but that the whole nation united
makes its own country the center of the great powers of the world [sekai
rekkoku no chu-shin], thus stimulate the vitality of the powers [rekkoku no
genki o katsudo- shi] and thereby maintain the peace among the great
powers of the world; to crush those among them which are strong and
violent and help those which are weak and small; and to lead those
among them which are ignorant and to promote and advance those
which are not yet enlightened, this is our duty.62
Although Nakanishi’s visions may afford a wry smile for its naivety, there is
no doubt that his contemporaries were tremendously aware of the ‘stimulus’
which the war had, domestically and abroad, and of the ‘internationalizing’
effects this entailed. The Kokumin shinbun in late March 1895 observed in its
characteristically epigrammatic way:
42 The Sino Japanese War
A Vital Turn in Our Country’s Fate
The Chinese expedition in a single stroke has vitalized the state and
infused the nation with self-awareness.
This is the very moment, a watershed in our country’s history. The
greatest turn of our country’s fate, it is now.63
Thus, although the Sino Japanese War in retrospect was often imputed with
having woken up China from its deluded opium dreams, in fact immediately
after the war it was Japan that, through the war, was considered to have
matured and become aware of its role in international politics. Uchimura
Kanzo- and other oppositionally minded people may have had their doubts
about the indirect consequences of the war (in the sense that Japan, newly
awakened, had instantly become as ‘depraved’ as the Christian powers).
However, they, too, never denied the merits of the war as having finally
opened up Japan to the world (and vice versa) for real. When looking back
from five years’ distance, the literary critic, Sinologue and journalist Taoka
Reiun (1870 1912) judged the effects of the war as follows:
The war of 1894 95, even if we would not have received Taiwan, or the
huge indemnity, still had the use of making the world acknowledge us
and, at the same time, of making our people, with their insular mindset,
to broaden the range of their perspective and make it global [sekai-teki].
China, although the blow it received was bitter, because of this must now
strive for self-strengthening and is aware that a [total] reform of its ways
is unavoidable.64
Japan’s globalized status also raised hopes for its maritime status after the war.
Thus in January 1895, the President of the House of Peers Konoe Atsumaro
argued that, given the inevitable and rapid spread of transportation networks
into the remotest corners of the world, Japan now must use its natural geo-
graphical advantage and secure Japan’s ‘maritime rights in East Asia’ (To-yo-
no kaijo-ken):
In the dawn of the future, when the Siberian Railroad will be fully con-
nected, the completion of the Nicaraguan Canal65 be announced and trade
between the West and Asia will be flourishing more than ever, will not Japan
be located exactly on the main fare of it? At that time, if we do not take
the shipping rights of the Pacific, the Japanese Sea, and the Chinese Sea
in our hands and if we do not make ourselves the maritime King of East
Asia [To-yo- no kaijo--o-], this would be like throwing away the advantages
which nature has bestowed on us and leave it to others to pick them up.66
Unfortunately, the Sino Japanese War also broadened the range of the per-
spective of the Western powers, and their re-awakened ambitions in East
Asia made them unwilling to yield power in East Asian (not to speak of
The Sino Japanese War 43
dominance) to Japan too easily. The Tripartite Intervention was the first
illustration of this. As we have said, probably influenced by the knowledge of
later developments, the reactions of the public to this event have often been
interpreted one-sidedly as an outcry against the injustice of the Intervention
powers. However, the government, too, was heavily censured for its blunder,
not least because it had fatally underestimated the internationalizing effects
of the war. Kuga Katsunan in June 1895 saw ‘international interventions’ as
the regular consequence of the globalization of power relations:
The author of the Asahi shinbun in the rest of the article argued for the third,
traditional option of ‘walking alone and standing apart.’
From early on, a majority came to view Britain as the most advantageous
alliance partner. However, it should be noted that, even among the most
ardent advocates of an Anglo Japanese alliance, there were still some reser-
vations in the early postwar years, mostly based on perceived discrepancies
in the level of civilization between the two countries. The Jiji shinpo-, for
example, consistently advocated the alliance and thereby supported influen-
tial advocates in the Foreign Ministry, such as Hayashi Tadasu (who himself
wrote for the newspaper) or Kato- Takaaki. However, Fukuzawa Yukichi
made it very clear that an alliance with the superpower Britain was a hope
for the future; as of now, Japan was not strong enough and therefore was not
a suitable partner for Britain, which, of course, wanted to benefit from the
alliance too.71 Thus, according to Fukuzawa, Japan did not yet meet the stan-
dard of the ‘most civilized’ country in the world. The Kokumin shinbun, too, in
July 1895 was still skeptical whether Britain could be Japan’s alliance partner,
and presented the opinion of a British author who answered the question in
the negative.72 However, in 1898 the Kokumin became one of the most ardent
supporters of an Anglo Japanese alliance due to the influence of the Far
Eastern Crisis.73
The North-China Herald was still rabidly anti-Japanese in these early days of
the war, and much of its belittling of Japan’s success could be attributed to
this sentiment. However, even Alfred Thayer Mahan in retrospect showed
himself not too impressed by the Japanese victory. In the article quoted
above, he commented:
The Japanese have shown great capacity, but they have met little resis-
tance; and it is easier by far to move and to control an island kingdom
of forty millions than a vast continental territory containing near tenfold
that number of inhabitants.77
One of the most famous depictions of the ‘yellow peril’ is the so-called
Knackfuss painting, which Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered in 1895 after his own
design, copies of which were then sent to the rulers and politicians of Europe
and Russia and displayed in German ships.81 This painting, which bore the
title ‘Ye Nations of Europe, Defend Your Most Holy Goods!’ was also well
known in Japan from early on. The Kokumin shinbun presented its readers
with a rough sketch of the Knackfuss painting as early as January 189682
(for comparison, the Russian czar received a copy only after September
1895, and Bismarck at Christmas 189583).
Japanese observers, of course, did not agree to anti-Japanese racism, the
implications of which we will discuss later in the context of Pan-Asianism.
However, many Japanese commentators did share the view that to win the
race against China did not mean to win the race of civilization, which had
only just begun. Fukuzawa Yukichi warned his fellow men that they ‘must
not pride themselves in the vain glory of victory.’84 Fukuzawa argued that
the victory of China was ‘no more than touching an old rotten thing and
bring it down.’ Even the modernization era after the Meiji Restoration was
nothing to be too proud about. After all, foreign relations in the prewar era
had been relatively simple, and Japan had been in a sheltered position then.
This was different now, in the globalized era of East Asia, where Japan had
to face the much more mighty opposition of the Western powers.
Foreign observers were skeptical, too. In 1900, the North-China Herald still
referred to Taiwan as the ‘lost dependency of Formosa.’107 However, the
Herald was wrong: things began to change after 1898 with the new Taiwan
administration, and in due time, Taiwan became Japan’s model colony.108
Yet the strain which the Taiwan business put on Japan’s administrative and
financial powers, on top of others, was another reason for moving very
cautiously in other affairs.
Our well-informed betters have the bad habit that they like idle talk, but
do not strive to make it real, that they delight in splendid words and big
phrases, but in coming up with tangible profits and gains, they are
inconsequential. This is the misfortune of our country. [ … ]
Demands that we must expand our national interests or that we must
raise the national prestige, especially the gentleman in the political world
put forth in speech and writing with gallant bravery. With gusto they
attack the government and, at their own permission, think themselves
patriotic and concerned men of high aspirations [shishi]. However, the
fact that the private business abroad [taigai mingyo-], which must be the
fundament of expanding the national interests and raising the country’s
prestige, consists in starting businesses overseas and in appropriating
railways, mines, and other profits, of this these people seem to be totally
ignorant.125
The observation that the people had lost their former ‘alacrity’ was a common
notion. Ko-toku’s article was merely concerned with the ‘inner dangers’ (han-
batsu politics and party corruption), but advocates of armament expansion
used the same arguments with regard to Japan’s ‘external dangers,’ especially
in the discussion about armament retrenchment in November 1897. The
causes for the ‘dulling’ of the senses were seen either in the excessive joy
about the victory (Fukuzawa138), in the long, debilitating peace of two years
(Kokumin shinbun139), or similar to Ko-toku as a consequence of the
sudden expansion of the empire, which brings exhaustion and the danger of
disintegration to nations (Taiyo-140).
However, whatever the different explanations were, all commentators were
equally at a loss when it came to advising a feasible method of how to rid
the ‘patient’ of his dullness. Thus it is not surprising that many people saw
no other way than craving for more ‘stimulus’ (shigeki, another watchword
of the time) from the same place as it had come from before foreign poli-
tics. The first round of this kind of stimulus after the Sino Japanese War
came with the shock of Germany’s occupation of Jiaozhou in late 1897 and
the beginning of the Far Eastern Crisis.
3 The Far Eastern Crisis of 1897–98
While Japan was turning inward and became absorbed in the vicissitudes of
the postwar management, the Western powers continued their expansion
into China and Korea. Until the end of 1897, Russia and France pursued an
active policy of ‘peaceful penetration’ in China, aimed at securing railway
and mining privileges in the areas they had chosen as their respective
‘spheres of influence,’ while Britain and Germany, although with the greatest
commercial interests in China, played a merely secondary, defensive part.1
However, all this changed with the Far Eastern Crisis of 1897 98 when, in a
chain reaction set off by Germany’s occupation of Jiaozhou Bay, the Western
powers one by one secured territorial leases on the Chinese coast.2
In the history of Western imperial politics towards China, the Far Eastern
Crisis 1897 98 was an important landmark, as it signalled a decided shift
from a more restrained policy of negotiating concessions on the basis of
international law to a policy of establishing faits accomplis by force first, and
letting diplomacy and law follow after.3 The new shift was not uncon-
troversial, and the often erratic and, in the case of Britain, rather opportu-
nistic behaviour of the actors involved shows considerable insecurity in the
face of the new situation.
For the Japanese government, the new development had the reverse effect
of acting as a catalyst for a restrained East Asian policy that sought to keep
Japan out of the continental embroglio as best as possible, while pursuing its
interests there by less formal and more unobtrusive ways. This also meant
not siding with any of the Western powers, but ‘standing alone and walking
apart.’ With the single exception of the Boxer expedition, Japan’s policy of
neutrality kept in place until 1902, when it was discarded for an Anglo
Japanese alliance against Russia. On the other hand, the Far Eastern Crisis
marked the beginning of a rapprochement between China and Japan
which the Japanese side, however, considering its official policy and the
neuroticism of the Western powers, consciously sought to keep on a merely
informal level.
For the Japanese public, the Far Eastern Crisis led to a heated discussion
about China’s future and Japan’s responsibility to ensure it, which, despite
some participants’ bitter protest to the contrary, generally followed the
56 The Far Eastern Crisis
government’s China policy. Previous scholarship has described the discussion
rather statically as juxtaposition between the realist argument of a partition
of China (Shina bunkatsu-ron) and the idealist advocacy of protecting China’s
integrity (Shina hozen-ron) or even ‘Asian solidarity’ against the Western
powers (Ajia rentai-ron).4 However, a discussion of Konoe Atsumaro’s and
Takayama Chogyu-’s positions at the time will show that ‘Asian solidarity,’
especially on the ground of ‘same race, same culture,’ was a highly con-
tentious idea in the public, but well employed in public diplomacy towards
China.5 Moreover, a discussion of Fukuzawa Yukichi and Kuga Katsunan
will demonstrate that the static juxtaposition misses the really significant
part of the discussion, which was a dynamic convergence of seemingly
antagonistic positions in the idea of protecting China, by which one adopted
elements of the other and both eventually became undistinguishable except
for different modes of expression. The convergence of positions may have
been due to the specific circumstances of Japan in international politics,
which led to a certain homogenization of world views, more than their pro-
ponents would probably have liked to acknowledge. Yet the blending of rea-
list and idealist positions could also be seen as a phenomenon not restricted
to Japan, but a general tendency of imperialist thought at the time.
I think that the general situation of East Asia, where greedy powers are
pushing ahead, is on the brink of chaos. Today, it is no longer merely the
issue of Korea’s independence, but now, China’s independence, too, is in
58 The Far Eastern Crisis
grave danger. The powers may begin to divide China at any moment
now. Under these circumstances, the paramount and imperative goal our
country must pursue is this: to place our own country in the position of
unbridled independence [dokuritsu fuki], so that we cannot be touched
by anyone.14
With urgent words, Ito- argued for a policy of non-involvement and warned
against hastily choosing alliance partners. In the second half of his memor-
ial, Ito- proceeded to outline the domestic troubles that had beset the country
lately: the disintegration of the political sphere due to constant feuding
between the factions had reached its limits; parties ignored the welfare of the
state in the pursuit of their petty interests. The bureaucracy and the people
were confused by the constant change of cabinets and had lost direction. The
economy, bound to experience a tremendous boost in the postwar years,
lacked capital and saw no other way than to import foreign capital in order
to survive. Society on the whole was torn by conflict and mutual envy, so
that the state eventually lacked all the essentials for cohesion and unity.
Ito-’s plea to neutrality was thus motivated by two factors: the explosive-
ness of the international situation right in front of Japan’s doorstep, and the
political and social instability at home. Conspicuously absent from the dis-
cussion were the burdens of the ‘postwar program’ which, as we have seen,
contributed much to the instability but then the program as such was a
given and not subject to political calculation. Moreover, it is worth men-
tioning that, in Ito-’s analysis of the situation, we do not find any concerns on
the relative morality or legitimacy of the Western powers’ actions in China
and how Japan should react to that, nor, for that matter, any further thought
wasted on China’s fate, especially what Japan should do about it. This is less
noteworthy in itself, as one could hardly expect an inveterate power-politician
such as Ito- to do so, but stands in stark contrast to the often emotional,
moralistic and with regard to China increasingly ‘altruistic’ discussion in
the Japanese public and among oppositional politicians at the same time.
The imperial conference unfailingly adopted Ito-’s recommendation of neu-
trality and immediately put it into practice. As a consequence, Japan did not
reciprocate when Britain suggested an Anglo Japanese alliance against Russia
in March 1898.15 This, in return, paid off in better relations with Russia and
resulted in a preliminary agreement over Korea that acknowledged the equal
strategic position of both countries and Japan’s overriding commercial interests
in Korea.16 With respect to Chinese territories, Japan remained seemingly
passive, too. The only positive action that Japan took was to secure the
relatively inoffensive promise of the non-alienation of the province Fujian,
across Taiwan, on 22 April 1898. This echoed a similar agreement between
Britain and China with regard to the Yangtze basin (where British commercial
interests were concentrated) in January 1898. However, in contrast to Britain,
the non-alienation did not go hand-in-hand with a privileged position in
Fujian (such as railway or mining concessions).17
The Far Eastern Crisis 59
One of the less immediately discernible, but all the more important, con-
sequences of the Far Eastern Crisis was the gradual rapprochement between
China and Japan. The Far Eastern Crisis brought a reversal of the pro-Russian
attitude among Chinese leaders, which in turn led to a cautiously coopera-
tive stance toward Japan. Japanese leaders were quick to discern this change
of attitude, or the possibility of it, and encouraged it in their own interests.18
Thus, soon after the beginning of the Far Eastern crisis, a flurry of activities
ensued, the initiative coming both from the Japanese military, which even
prior to the Far Eastern Crisis had looked for opportunities to approach
China, and from the foreign ministry. In December 1897 General Kawakami
So-roku (1848 99) sent a group of officers and one journalist to China in
order to visit high-ranking Chinese officials such as Zhang Zhidong and Liu
Kunyi (1830 1902), both governor-generals in regions of strategic and eco-
nomic importance to Japan, and to sound out the possibility of a closer
cooperation with China.19 Kawakami, who was soon to become Chief of the
General Staff, thus started a tradition of Japanese military training and
advice in China. The Japanese minister in Beijing, Yano Fumio (1850 1931),
in April and May 1898 invited large numbers of Chinese students to Japan
on the Japanese government’s expenses and initiated a phase of Japanese
teachers going to China and Chinese students coming to Japan in large
numbers.20 On the economic level, the government, too, tried to implement
its ‘continental strategy’ of state-supported expansion acting in lieu of pri-
vate entrepreneurs who lacked the capital (in 1902 foreign minister Komura
Jutaro- affirmed this policy as the common policy for both China and Korea).
Between 1898 and 1899, the Japanese government, for example, tried to
monopolize the management of iron ore mining in Hubei province (Hanyang
and Dayeshan) to feed its newly built Yawata Steelworks (but lost out in the
competition with other Western powers).21 As we shall see, Ito- Hirobumi
himself in July 1898 went on a tour through Korea and China, especially to
visit the newly opened ports in China and observe the possibilities of Japan’s
economic expansion in China.
The flurry of activities in the wake of the Far Eastern crisis finally devel-
oped into what Douglas R. Reynolds has called the ‘golden decade’ of Sino
Japanese cooperation, which extended to almost all fields of public life and
state governance.22 Whatever the quality of the decade, it should be cautioned
that this cooperation remained purely pragmatic and never assumed the
quality of an official ‘friendship.’ With respect to Western suspicions, Japanese
leaders were scrupulous in avoiding any impression that Japan had a special
relationship with China that was closer than its relationship with any Western
country. Thus, if Kawakami’s envoys may have invoked ‘same culture, same
race’ (do-bun do-shu) when trying to ingratiate themselves with Zhang Zhidong,
among Japanese leaders we seldom hear such words spoken in public.23 On
the contrary, numerous instances are known when Japanese politicians of all
factions clearly decided or spoke against a closer formal relationship with
China. When the reform-minded Guangxu emperor (1871 1908) in September
60 The Far Eastern Crisis
-
1898 proposed to send a special plenipotentiary to Tokyo, Okuma Shigenobu’s
minister in Beijing, Hayashi Gonsuke, replied very cautiously that this would
need time and consultation with Britain and Russia first.24 And again, in May
1899, Yamagata Aritomo commented on the arrival of a special envoy from
Beijing that, if the intention was an alliance, Japan should politely reject it,
arguing as follows:
On the present occasion, we should treat the envoy so as not to hurt the
feelings of China and maintain the close relationship of our countries. If
there is an opportunity to expand our line of interest [waga rieki-sen] we
should always pay attention not to lose it. However, if our country and
China entered a relationship which would exceed the degree of closeness
and arouse the suspicion among the Western powers of a Sino Japanese
alliance against Europe, this would not only eventually result in a battle
of races [jinshu no arasoi], but it is difficult to tell if this would not also
have consequences which would prove detrimental to our interests in the
present Hague Peace Conference [1899]. Moreover, even if our financial,
political, and military power would allow it, I believe that to cooperate
with China for the independence of East Asia is a poor strategy [ses-
saku]. China, as I have said before, like the Jewish race will continue as a
race, but it will not long maintain its state as a whole. This is already the
fixed opinion of the experts. Even if it can maintain its state, it will not
be able to maintain it with the present territory. It will save only a small
fraction, and the rest will be divided among the powers. In East Asia,
the only country which will be able to maintain its independence is our
empire.25
First responses
The new crisis forcefully reminded the Japanese public of Japan’s inter-
nationalized environment after the Sino Japanese War and roused bad
memories of the Tripartite Intervention. The first reactions also reveal an
acute sense of vulnerability, which people felt despite, or because of, the fact
that Japan now was an extended empire.
News of the occupation of Jiaozhou reached the Japanese public around
20 November 1897, via Reuters’ cables.26 Commentators apparently needed
some time to digest the momentous news, as substantial commentaries star-
ted to appear only a week later. By then, however, the fama had made its
The Far Eastern Crisis 61
way from Shanghai to Japan that the German occupation was only the
beginning of a second Tripartite Intervention, which would cost Japan its
precious colony Taiwan. Anxiety was especially fired by a dispatch reported
by the Jiji shinpo- on 3 December 1897 according to which, France, Russia
and Germany had conspired to seize territory in East Asia.27 Kuga Katsunan
recorded and ridiculed the hysterical reactions of the people:
Suddenly, a telegram arrives from Shanghai which says that Russia has
interests in Korea and North-China, and France in Taiwan and Fuzhou.
This has now practically turned into the rumour that Europe, led by two
or three powers, will come upon Japan, China, and Korea. The talk
about the division of China has made a full turn and has now become a
discussion of the division of the whole Far East. The hopes that Japan
sooner or later would enter the rows of those who would do the dividing,
has undergone a complete transformation, and it is now being said that
Japan soon will be reckoned, like China, among those being divided.28
Although it is said that the fire is on the other side of the shore, that
shore is separated from us only by a small strip of water. That means,
now that Taiwan has become already our territory, we must defend it
like our mother country and must not lose one inch of our land. Since
olden times, our country has been cherished as ‘golden jar, without a
blemish.’29 However, in our modern times to keep this greatly expanded
‘golden jar’ without a blemish, it may not do just to defend it. Depend-
ing on the case, we may be forced to attack, as well. Because it is a rule
that if you want to protect a hundred per cent, you will have to have a
hundred-and-thirty or hundred-and-fifty per cent. Thus, we must be
prepared that, if we want to protect Taiwan, we might have to move
forward and protect territory outside of the island.30
Thus, in a sense, the somewhat unbalanced first reactions to the Crisis could
be also seen as a proof that the Japanese public by then had already settled
into the imperialist mode, along with its somewhat neurotic siege mentality.31
62 The Far Eastern Crisis
Further reactions in the acute stage of the Crisis (until the end of March
1898) can be divided into two basic patterns, and generally along political
fault lines. Pro-government organs such as the To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun
and the Chu-o- shinbun tended to support the official policy of neutrality by
systematically playing down the Crisis and its effects, refraining from any
comments as to the legitimacy of actions, and especially from demon-
strating any particular sympathy towards China. To give a few examples:
when Russian warships entered Port Arthur and Dalian in December
1897, the To-kyo- nichinichi studiously tried to appear untroubled and argued
that this might be merely for wintering the Russian fleet, since Jiaozhou
Bay was now occupied by the Germans.32 In February 1898, when the
majority opinion in a heated debate was in favor of extending the deadline
for China to pay the last installment of the war reparations (and thus keep
Weihaiwei as security occupied), the Nichinichi was against it, despite its own
amazement two weeks earlier at China’s scandalous indebtedness.33 Now it
argued that the question of payments affected more countries than just
China and Japan (in fact, Britain and Russia at the time were arguing about
who would become China’s next creditor), and therefore the Shimonoseki
Treaty could not be amended at one’s own whim.34 Finally, when the oppo-
sition in April 1898 attacked the government for its ‘weak policy’ against
Russia and Germany, and demanded that Japan stay in Weihaiwei despite
full payment of the indemnity, the Chu-o- shinbun made a counterattack with
the argument already discussed above, that the people should rather con-
centrate on the commercial exploits of the privileges Japan already possessed
in China.35
The other pattern of reaction was moral indignation at the ‘barbaric’ way
in which Germany and Russia ‘robbed’ and ‘extorted’ land from China. Even
Fukuzawa was impressed by the brashness of Germany’s actions: ‘To seize
land without any preliminary negotiations is like extortion, posting oneself
with a bare knife at the head of the debtor’s bed. It is a most outrageous
and violent behaviour, which on the grounds of international etiquette is
absolutely not permissible.’36
Reminded of the Tripartite Intervention, the German emperor’s racist
antics again became the object of indignant ridicule. On the occasion of the
Far Eastern Crisis, the To-kyo- nichinichi printed another drawing taken from
the Knackfuss painting,37 soon to be followed by satirical variations on the
theme taken from the German satirical magazines Ulk and Kladderadatsch
(for example, ‘Ye nations of Europe, grab the most holy territories in
China!’).38 Kuga Katsunan decried the German emperor’s pompous gesture
when sending off his royal brother as a ‘stage act’, which would do well in a
Kabuki-drama set in the Sengoku era but did not befit the monarch of a
modern nation.39 As was to be expected, the indignation was especially
strong among those who traditionally championed the virtue of ‘chivalry’ in
foreign affairs the opposition and especially the strong foreign policy
advocates close to the Shinpoto-.
The Far Eastern Crisis 63
Intermezzo: German-Japanese perspectives
Although oppositional observers vehemently attacked Germany and Russia
for their wrongful deeds, protests were usually not expected to be heard in
those countries. However, late Meiji Japan was not always on the receiving
end of information, and, as we shall see more frequently in these chapters, its
rising status in the world increasingly led to the intentional or accidental
projection of Japanese opinions to the outside. A rather curious example of
this is the recorded dialogue that took place in Heidelberg in the winter of
1897 98 between a Japanese and a German law professor about the legitimacy
of German’s actions and imperialist politics in general.
At the time of the Far Eastern Crisis, the young law professor Nakamura
Shingo (1870 1939), protégé of Konoe Atsumaro and later a famous advo-
cate of war with Russia, was on his grand tour through Europe, studying law
in Heidelberg.40 There he attended the lecture on international law by Her-
mann Strauch.41 During one of the accompanying tutorial classes (which
only he and another German student attended), Nakamura presented an
essay on the ‘Jiaozhou question.’42 The specific subject of Nakamura’s pre-
sentation was the question whether Germany’s occupation and lease of
Jiaozhou was legitimate according to international law, especially whether
the occupation was a form of legitimate ‘reprisals’ (Repressalien) for the
murder of the two German priests. However, the technical question, which
Nakamura answered in the negative, made only the smallest part of the
essay, of which the bigger part was devoted to a harsh critique of the ruthless
expansion policies of the Western powers in general, and of Germany in
particular, much to the displeasure of Strauch. Thus Nakamura lambasted
the world-conquering ambitions of the powers:
Later reactions
After the Far Eastern Crisis de-escalated by the end of March 1898, and
after Britain had secured its lease of Weihaiwei, the public debate changed
significantly: Firstly, oppositional commentators shifted their attention away
from the wrongdoings of the powers back to those of the Japanese govern-
ment, attacking it for abetting the East Asian situation. This shift was clearly
motivated by domestic politics. A typical, and arguably the most notorious,
example was the founding of the ‘Society of like-minded fellows in foreign
matters’ (Taigai do-shi-kai) in April 1898. This society, founded by strong
foreign policy advocates close to the Shinpoto-, demanded that the government
must ‘protest’ (ko-gi) against the occupation of Russia and Germany, or other-
wise stay in Weihaiwei or step down altogether.46 They issued manifestos and
sent delegations to the prime minister, thus setting the pattern for the anti-
Russian agitation only a few years later (and it is no coincidence that several
leading members of the ‘Society’ played a leading role in the anti-Russian
movement as well).47
Most oppositional newspapers supported the campaign with often devious
commentaries of their own. Thus, when the Shinpoto- newspaper Ho-chi
shinbun argued in April 1898 that Japan should seek in Weihaiwei a com-
pensation for the lease of Port Arthur to Russia (blissfully disregarding the
fact that Britain had just obtained a lease), and included in the article a draft
of the right kind of dispatch to China, the Japan Weekly Mail commented
on this draft with ironic admiration:
The Far Eastern Crisis 65
[ … ] we are bound to say that the language of the document belongs to
an exalted rank of diplomatic speciousness. [ … ] the gist of the whole
thesis [of the dispatch] is that Japan, commiserating China’s weakness,
and appreciating the danger of disruption that threatens her, advises her
to hand over some important points [including Weihaiwei] to be guarded
by her neighbour, so that the two Powers may act in concert to stem the
eastward set of the tide of Occidental aggression.’48
Konoe Atsumaro
The forceful arrival of Germany and Russia in East Asian waters led some
Japanese observers to believe that Japan and China must reconcile in order
to ward off the new danger. Thus, the Kokumin shinbun in December 1897
argued for the possibility of a Sino Japanese rapprochement:
As I see it, East Asia in the future inevitably will become the stage for a
contest between the races [jinshu kyo-so- no butai]. Even if momentary
68 The Far Eastern Crisis
considerations of foreign policy should produce a different setting, this
will be but of fleeting existence. The final destiny will be a contest between
the yellow and the white race [ko-haku ryo--jinshu no kyo-so-], and in this
contest the Chinese people and the Japanese people will be placed in the
same position, being both considered as the sworn enemy of the white
race [hakujinshu no kyu-teki]. Those who are considering a long-term
strategy do well to consider these facts.62
The last two paragraphs contained a much more sober and pragmatic
exposition of the necessity to gather intelligence and conduct public diplo-
macy in China. This was common sense, and was soon implemented by the
founding of the above ‘Asianist’ societies.63
However, with the suggestion of a ‘racial competition’ and the proposal of
a racial pan-Asianist alliance, Konoe broke with a received notion and hit on
a taboo subject: for one, he contradicted the stout belief of Meiji citizens in
the universal standard of civilization and the ‘race of civilization’ (see
Chapter 1); and secondly, his pan-Asianist fantasies could not fail to rouse
fears in the West of a ‘yellow peril.’ And in fact, Konoe’s vision could be
seen (and was seen at the time) as a mere variation on the ‘yellow peril’
theme.
Curiously enough, the subject of a pan-Asianist alliance does not seem to
-
have come to Konoe naturally. His private secretary, Ouchi Cho-zo- (1874 1944),
remembered that in August 1897, having returned from his studies at
Columbia University in New York, he had a job interview with Konoe in
which he tried to impress Konoe with the new ideas he had brought back
from his studies, and thus predicted a ‘race antagonism’ (rêsu antagonizumu)
-
in the Pacific.64 Ouchi even had written an essay on the subject, which he
wanted to publish. However, to his surprise, Konoe warned that such a thing
must not be published and insisted on the common sense, that there was only
a ‘competition of civilization,’ arguing:
Why Konoe should change his mind within four months and publish the
idea of race antagonism under his own good name in January 1898, remains
somewhat mysterious. However, the harsh reactions in Japan and abroad
The Far Eastern Crisis 69
were such that he soon changed his mind again and recanted every notion of
a pan-Asianist alliance.
In Japan, Konoe’s proposal of a ‘race alliance’ was met with scorn and deri-
sion. In February 1898, for example, an editorial of the newly founded journal
Tenchijin critically reviewed Konoe’s article under the title ‘The appropriate-
ness and merits of an alliance of the yellow race’.67 The editorial started out
with the observation that the question of China’s future had always been an
important issue for the powers, especially for Japan. The central question
was whether China would go to pieces and Japan should consider a strategy
for its division, or whether China would survive and Japan should consider
relief measures. However, after considering China’s retrograde obstinacy and
the recent actions of the Western powers, the author eventually concluded
that the demise of the ‘Central Efflorescence’ (Chu-ka) was imminent, and
therefore also that of the theory about China’s division (Shina bunkatsu ron),
which had spread lately, not without reason. However, what with China’s
splendid role in history, its ancient and singular culture, its vast spaces and
multitudes, some people could not help feeling overwhelmed by ‘poetic sen-
timents’ (shika-teki kangai) when thinking that an empire of 3000 years
would go down in a morning, all the more as it was a neighboring country
of the same race. Thus it was not accidental that there had been recent talk
about a racial alliance in Japan, and that a person like Konoe would raise
his banner high.
The author proceeded to quote Konoe’s text at length and praised it as
a ‘bold article.’ However, he ventured to analyze Konoe’s thesis consider-
ing the following questions: Was race necessarily the criterion of an alli-
ance? Or if it was civilization, could Japan and China form an alliance on
the basis of civilization? The author bluntly answered the above questions
in the negative: to enter an eternal alliance with one race while wholly
ignoring the aspect of cultural superiority was contrary to the principles of
evolution and paved the road to certain demise. ‘And who is superior? Is
it not he who casts away the old ways [kyu-tai o datsu shi], transcends its
cognates and transforms himself to someone more superior?’68 Thus not
racial, but cultural competition was the watchword. The author, without
hesitation, credited the white race with having the superior civilization at
present:
The crucial point is merely that, even though we belong to the yellow
race, we exert ourselves to study as best as we can the strong points of
the white race, make use of its conveniences and thereby surpass all
races around us and become someone superior [yu-sho--sha]. What does
that mean, a ‘fellow man’? Is it preordained by nature that we must
associate with the Chinese? The only thing that is necessary is that we
align ourselves with the civilization of the European Christian nations.
Just look, are not the examples of those who refused it and invited their
downfall numerous and right before our eyes?69
70 The Far Eastern Crisis
If not on racial grounds, Japan could not form an alliance with China on the
basis of civilization, either. Rather than pulling China upwards, an associa-
tion with China would invariably drag Japan down into the abyss of oriental
retrogression (Nihon o hiite Shina no gotoki To-yo--teki bunmei no ko-chu- ni
ochiirashimezaru bekarazu).70 Japan would have to induce China to make
fundamental reforms and completely change the nature of its civilization.
However, this was like (quoting Mencius) ‘crossing the bay of the Bohai
carrying Mt. Tai under one’s arm,’ in other words, utterly impossible.
This was the gist of the writer’s critique of Konoe. Although the magazine
seemed to be close to the oppositional parties, the author’s ‘realist’ stance
very much resembled the realist stance of the Jiji shinpo- at the time. It is
therefore no surprise that the writer ended his article by quoting exten-
sively quasi as an antidote to the lengthy quotes from Konoe’s article
from two recent ‘excellent articles by the esteemed Mr Fukuzawa,’ which he
recommended for their relentless sharpness of insight.71 We will discuss these
two articles in the context of Fukuzawa Yukichi’s position later.
-
Even Okuma Shigenobu, whose views otherwise were close to those of
Konoe Atsumaro, called the proposal of a racial alliance a ‘stupid idea’ (guron).
This was in an interview in the same issue of the Tenchijin, on his views on
-
East Asian politics.72 Okuma argued that, in international politics, alliances
were formed usually without regard to religion or race. Talking now of a ‘racial
alliance’ therefore was extremely thoughtless and ignorant (ukatsu futsu-). If
an alliance was to be considered at all, this would have to be on the grounds
of civilization and benefits (bunmei to rieki no ue ni), that is, ‘we should
merely strive to align ourselves with the civilization that is likely to win.’ At
-
the beginning of the interview, Okuma had discoursed long and favorably
-
about the option of an alliance with Britain, and it is obvious that Okuma
thought an Anglo Japanese alliance much more advantageous in terms of
‘civilization and benefits’ than a Sino Japanese alliance. And this, in fact,
became the majority opinion early in 1898: that, instead of a Sino Japanese
alliance, an alliance with Britain in favor of China (China’s integrity) would
be the best.
Thus even the Taiyo- finally rejected Konoe’s idea, and in May 1898 pub-
lished an article on the ‘true meaning of a Sino Japanese alliance,’ which ran
-
very much along the lines of Okuma’s views, arguing that, if there were to be
an alliance between China and Japan at all, it would be a strategic one to
save China and maintain the status quo in East Asia, but certainly not a racial
or culturally justified alliance. It was open to any country that shared the
same goals, as Britain did, and the United States.73 The number of reactions
indicates how contentious the idea of a Sino Japanese allliance à deux was
among the Japanese public. In fact, a majority were rather against it, favoring
an alliance with Britain instead.
However, Konoe’s article did most of its damage in Europe. To begin with,
Russian diplomatic circles deviously employed the article as a weapon of
public diplomacy, to forestall an Anglo Japanese alliance by inciting racist
The Far Eastern Crisis 71
fears and, at the same time, ideologically to bolster Russia’s claims of East
Asian domination instead. Thus, in April 1898, the Japan Weekly Mail
syndicated an article in the British Globe, which contained the translation of
an article in the Novoe Vremya, a conservative St Petersburg journal of great
influence.74 This Russian article ‘by the well known Russian writer “Sigma” ‘
gave a rather accurate summary of Konoe Atsumaro’s theses, stressing the
fact that Konoe was the ‘President of the Japanese House of Peers,’ and
adduced Konoe’s theses as a proof that the Japanese leadership still pursued
its long-term goal of East Asian domination through a racial alliance with
China and Korea; the Sino Japanese War had been a (failed) first attempt to
‘wake up’ the Chinese and Korean masses. Thus, the article implied, an
Anglo Japanese alliance could be but a temporary affair. Moreover, Russia
had the ‘natural mission’ and capability to stop Japan from uniting the
‘yellow hordes’:
It is but too clear that had only Japan become a continental Power of
Asia [by keeping the Liaodong peninsula] she could have spread her
wings widely over China and Korea. But Japan, having lost the basis
for a future alliance of the whole yellow race, now enjoys the oppor-
tunity of carrying on the struggle by substituting for Asiatic allies those
European powers above all, England whose interests suffer from the
Siberian Railway. [ ... ] Now, if Japan is striving to arouse the whole
yellow race, Russia can at the same time play the old historic part:
that is, of pacifying that race from the West, where in days of yore we
pushed back from the heart of our kingdom the hordes of Polontzi,
Petcheniegi, (Turkish Mongolian races), and of Tartars. Our action at
Chifu and the Russo-Chinese loan are but a continuation of the
policy of peaceful subjugation of those nations of the yellow race who
inhabit the huge tract of country between the Volga and the Pacific,
whose blood, besides, flows in our veins. There is no political sentimentality
in this.75
Thus, suddenly, the Russians turned out to be half-Asian, too, providing just
the right mixture of civilized distance and racial proximity to qualify as the
perfect pacifiers of the ‘half-barbaric’ East.76
The reactions to Konoe’s article in Germany and France were no less
alarming. They were brought to Konoe’s attention by his faithful protégé
and employee Nakamura Shingo who, as we have seen, studied in Heidel-
berg at the time. In March 1898, Nakamura wrote Konoe a rather alarmed
letter, observing that Konoe’s article had provoked a controversy in all news-
papers around Europe.77 That afternoon, in the last session of his tutorial
that semester, Professor Strauch had shown him the local newspaper, the
Heidelberger Tageblatt, which carried on that day an article on Konoe’s essay
and the Kokumin shinbun-article mentioned above.78 The professor com-
mented on the article: ‘There is somebody in Japan called Prince Konoe who
72 The Far Eastern Crisis
is of the same opinion as you. Look at the newspaper!’ Nakamura replied
that he had read about it already in the Frankfurter Zeitung the day before,
but said no more.
In his letter, Nakamura politely but urgently begged Konoe to refrain
from similar statements in the future. After all, Konoe was not merely Prince
Konoe of Japan, but Prince Konoe of the whole world, and in this age when
international contact became ever more frequent, it was a formidable thing
to attract such universal enmity. Especially now that mixed residence (naichi
zakkyo) was about to become reality in Japan, and traffic with foreign
countries became more and more extensive and intensive, the bigger part
of what Konoe planned to do for his country would be frustrated because
of this enmity. Even in Japan there might be people who expressed their
absolute opposition to Konoe’s thesis. How likely was it that foreigners
would judge his thesis with calm and objectivity? People were unlikely to
forget. In future, when Konoe would become an ambassador in Europe,
minister of the Imperial Household, or prime minister, foreign people would
still say that he was the one who advocated a Sino Japanese alliance on
racial grounds, and that he was opposed to a rapprochement between Japan
and Europe. This would be most detrimental to Konoe’s endeavors when in
office.
As proof of how much Konoe’s essay, once its contents had become
known in the West, had intensified the suspicions of the West towards Japan,
Nakamura copied an article he found in the Frankfurter Zeitung the very
next morning (4 March 1898):
Certainly the most urgent task today is to swiftly determine our national
policy and unite public opinion. However, the most urgent task of all
must be seen in defining our policy towards China. Today, I do not
claim anymore that, because our empire and China share a common
culture and a common race [do-bun do-shu], our empire should volunteer
to shoulder China’s fate itself. I say that we merely should consider our
own empire’s future fate, decide upon an urgent policy suitable to it,
respond to the opportunities and watch the changes, act with swift
determination and thereby secure today’s advantages.81
For the president of the newly founded ‘East Asia Common Culture Asso-
ciation’ (To-a do-bun-kai), to reject right away the notion of ‘common culture,
common race’ (do-bun do-shu) was a rather remarkable thing to do. However,
in September 1900, on the occasion of the founding of the Kokumin do-mei-kai,
Konoe publicly reconfirmed his disavowal of the ‘common race’ idea.82
Instead of a Sino Japanese Alliance, Konoe soon began to favor an alli-
ance with Britain (like almost everyone else). In July 1898, the Meiji emperor
-
told the new prime minister Okuma about his further plans with regards to
Konoe: ‘I secretly have expectations in Atsumaro. I wish that he is sent for a
while abroad, so that he gradually cultivates his knowledge in diplomacy and
in the future is closely entrusted with an important position of responsi-
bility.’83 The emperor had an ambassadorship in mind, but on Konoe’s own
request he was sent all around the United States, Europe and China to pre-
sent himself (and, possibly, mend his reputation). Having returned to Japan
in November 1899, Konoe soon became one of the most active advocates of
an Anglo Japanese alliance against Russia.
Takayama Chogyu-
Among the few who supported Konoe’s thesis, even after Konoe had recan-
ted, was Takayama Chogyu- (Rinjiro-), editor of the Taiyo- literature and arts
section. Takayama belonged to the small circle of Meiji intellectuals who
ardently believed in ‘scientific racism,’ racial homogeneity and the idea of
race antagonism.84 Thus, three weeks after Konoe’s article on a racial alliance,
Takayama, too, discoursed on the ‘Far Eastern Question as seen as a racial
competition.’85 He ‘scientifically’ traced the development of the races of the
world and came to the conclusion that the Far Eastern Crisis was the expres-
sion of another ‘high renaissance’ of the Aryan race at the end of the nineteenth
century. Again, in March 1898, Takayama published a short commentary on
74 The Far Eastern Crisis
‘alliances between different races’ which was directed against the popular
idea of an alliance with Britain or France. Tracing various incidents of world
politics back to their racial origins, Takayama argued that the great trend of
the nineteenth century was ‘race nationalism.’ Thus he warned his fellow-
citizens against racially hybrid alliances: ‘People, accept the historical fact
that an alliance between different races is hardly maintained for long!’86
Takayama remained faithful to the concept of racial competition long after
and, unlike Konoe, did not yield to the Meiji common sense.87
Given Takayama’s professed aversion against hybrid alliances, it is not
surprising that, later in 1898, Takayama would register with considerable
satisfaction a new tendency among the Chinese people to advocate an alliance
with Japan. Thus he observed in July 1898:
Fukuzawa Yukichi
Fukuzawa’s stance toward China is usually known by the short, but aggres-
sive, leading article ‘On leaving Asia behind’ (‘Datsua ron’), which we
have already discussed in Chapter 1. However, during the Far Eastern
Crisis, Fukuzawa’s stance toward China underwent a remarkable change,
converting his former aggressiveness within months into uncanny friendliness
towards China.
76 The Far Eastern Crisis
Initially, the Far Eastern Crisis provided Fukuzawa with yet another
opportunity to preach his accustomed gospel of power, according to which
only the fittest nations would survive in the merciless struggle for domination
(jakuniku kyo-shoku).97 Fitness, however, meant keeping abreast with progress
and meeting the standards of civilization, which were decidedly Western, not
Chinese:
China, having stopped progressing centuries ago, due to the snares of Con-
fucianism, now was already dead.99 Merely its body was still in good shape,
and fair prey to the circling powers:
If we look at the present state of China, its population is big, its produce
is rich, and it occupies a vast territory. However, if we compare its lack
of inner unity and its restriction of movement with the human body,
then its blood circulation has stopped, and the nerves also have lost their
movement. But still, the five parts of the body [gotai]100 are well nour-
ished and magnificently plumb and are no different from a body which
keeps its regular shape.101
Fukuzawa not only argued that Japan was entitled to a share, but even
claimed that Japan, in fact, would be the perfect ruler for China, more
than any other nation.106 When it actually came to the division of China,
Fukuzawa argued, it would show that the Western nations were unfit for
ruling China. All they had succeeded in, so far, was ‘domesticating’ mere
barbarians. Yet China was not so simple a matter, as it had been a fully
fledged empire with a long history of civilization for thousands of years. Of
this, the Western powers knew nothing. Japan, on the other hand, was
familiar with China’s tradition and situation, and had proven its ruling
abilities already in the case of the Ryu-kyu- kingdom. Thus Fukuzawa
concluded:
However, the end of March 1898 saw an almost full conversion of Fukuzawa’s
image of China. Instead of dividing China and ruling the Chinese, Fukuzawa
suddenly denied any territorial interests in China and proclaimed that ‘we
must befriend the Chinese.’108 As before, Fukuzawa maintained that ‘self-
interest’ was the driving force in international relations, but there was no
more talk about ‘the strong eating the weak’ and much about mutual benefits
through friendly commercial relations:
Likewise, there was no more talk about the Chinese as a dull and demented
people. On the contrary, the Chinese had finally awoken to the truth of
where China’s real friends were:
If we think about it, the Chinese are not stupid at all. Although it is
evident that they saw and understood the general interests themselves, at
the time [of the Tripartite Intervention, 1895], it was a situation of
emergency, and they could not afford to consider what would come
after. Merely to master the crisis at hand, they must have accepted for-
eign intervention as their chance and relied on it as their rescue. This
might have been inevitable, but now, after the passing of only three or
four years, what has come of it, eventually? The former Buddha [the
Tripartite Powers] has suddenly turned into the Lord of Hell [Emma].
The demands [of the powers] are huge, and if we look at what has been
granted so far, the Liaodong Peninsula is nothing against it. [ … ] It is a
rather disagreeable business, and today, they must have realized that it
might have been the better strategy to give the Liaodong Peninsula to
Japan. In fact, the Chinese recently do feel that they must fear the for-
eigners [the Western powers] and have developed sympathies for Japan.
This is exactly what a telegram from Peking says, i.e. that the ruler and
the subjects of China in general have come to trust in Japan. Moreover,
according to news we have obtained from another source, among such
people like Zhang Zhidong, there has been a great awakening recently.
As part of this fortunate event, he has sent one of his men to make the
passage for Japan, and according to the report [of this subordinate], he
[Zhang Zhidong] will sent approximately one-hundred-and-fifty students
to our country and let them study all sorts of matters. Even judging this
kind of information suffices to discern more and more the recent tendency
of the Chinese.110
And in this recent tendency, Fukuzawa bestowed great hopes. No more did
Fukuzawa speak of China’s demise and final partition, but instead declared
that ‘the Chinese must not lose hope.’111 Suddenly, Fukuzawa found com-
passion for China’s tribulations and assured that China was not lost. The
occupation of some places at the Chinese coast merely meant ‘a hair taken
from among nine oxen’112 and could do no harm to China. Although China
might look ruinous on the outside, it was so big, and so ‘well nourished’ on
the inside, that he had great hopes. These foreign tribulations may well be
but the necessary rites of passages for the necessary changes, in the same
manner as the Meiji Restoration had been triggered in Japan. China might
still reach the same level as Japan today:
The Far Eastern Crisis 79
The future course need absolutely not let us lose hope. On the contrary,
we can console ourselves that the tribulations are rather in the regular
order of the process. From the Chinese perspective, the state of Japan today
may probably arouse great envy. However, Japan has reached its present
position by passing through what China is suffering today. The Chinese,
too, must strive to pass through their present difficulties and become
what Japan is today. I as a Japanese am especially sympathetic. That the
time will come, if even one day earlier, this is my most fervent wish.113
Japan’s attitude towards China is motivated only by the wish to open the
country and profit from trade with it. To show any ambitions with
regards to occupying territory, it would not even dream of. As the old
adage goes, if the lips crumble, the teeth are cold. If it comes to the
worst, will China become the second Poland? Japan in its dealings with
the European powers has acutely felt the difficulties of maintaining its
position as a state. Therefore, it considers the protection of China’s
independence [Shina no dokuritsu o hozen suru] as Japan’s national
policy.115
Suppose even the Chinese were somewhat dim, if they see that their
stubborn reactionarism time and again brings disaster over them, they
must change their mind. However, once they have awakened to the
necessity of reform, it is but the natural course that they will want to
follow the precedent of Japan. The countries of the West from the begin-
ning had a civilization which differed from China, and their customs and
languages are altogether different. However, Japan, over a long time shar-
ing the same civilization and adhering to the same religion [Buddhism]
and moral precepts [Confucianism], by a sudden chance has moved
80 The Far Eastern Crisis
forward alone and has thus achieved the wealth and power of today.
Therefore, if China finally makes the effort to introduce civilization, it
must necessarily move forward by following the footsteps of Japan. It
will be essential that, in moving forward by following the footsteps of
Japan, it will rely in all affairs on the guidance of Japan. Speaking from
the point of experience as well as seen from the eagerness with which it
strives for its independence, there is none better qualified to teach the
old empire than Japan. To learn from the Westerners would be tanta-
mount to being fostered by a stepmother, whereas being led by our people
would be exactly like being raised by one’s real parents. It goes without
saying that between the two, there is a fundamental difference.117
Thus the Jiji shinpo- tried to wean the Chinese suckling from its evil step-
mother, the Western powers, and especially Russia (incidentally, a Jiji shinpo--
caricature of February 1898 shows Russia as an evil-looking stepmother holding
two children, China and Korea, in her arms, lulling them to sleep118).
How are we now to explain Fukuzawa’s and his newspaper’s sudden con-
version from one of the most rabidly anti-Chinese stances to such zealous
Sinophilia? The mercurial nature of Fukuzawa’s thought has often been
commented on, and has infuriated modern readers. To manage Fukuzawa,
the concept of ‘situational thought’ or ‘perception’ (jo-kyo--teki shiko- or ninshiki)
is often adduced as a panacea for the seeming contradictions in his state-
ments.119 However, genteel words aside, it should be noted that contemporaries
of Fukuzawa and the Jiji shinpo- considered the newspaper’s meandering course
as pure and simple radical opportunism. Especially the year 1898 saw three
rapid switches of political allegiance (always to the one in power), which
caused the To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun to devote a long and sardonic article on
‘the suicide of the Jiji shinpo-.’120
However, in its close ties to high government circles, especially in the
Foreign Ministry, the Jiji shinpo- remained constant, and in this light we
should also view the conversion. It is certainly no coincidence that the
newspaper’s conversion occurred in May, at around the same time as Yano
Fumio in Beijing suggested taking on Chinese students, an initiative that was
ultimately backed by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.121 Moreover, Fukuzawa
himself mentioned, in March 1898, Zhang Zhidong’s envoy and his will-
ingness to send over Chinese students (see above).122 Given Fukuzawa’s
welcoming of Korean overseas students in the 1880s, by which he sought to
promote reform in Korea, this new interest in Chinese students is hardly
surprising.
The wish to promote reform in China may also account for the wooing
tone in some of the later articles, which seems somewhat out of place
towards an exclusively Japanese public. However, as we have seen, articles of
the Jiji shinpo- and other Japanese newspapers received attention in China,
especially among reformist circles.123 Thus especially those articles that
offered consolation in hard times and assured of Japanese friendship had a
The Far Eastern Crisis 81
good chance of being disseminated by the Chinese press. This would parallel
the attempts at public diplomacy we have already witnessed above in Takayama
Chogyu-’s case, and gives an interesting new twist to Japan’s awareness of the
world: if in 1885 it was still ‘the eyes of the civilized Western people’ that
exclusively mattered to Japan (at least to the Jiji shinpo-, as we have seen), in
1898 the Chinese perspective became important as well. Of course, its
importance was of a different character, as the Jiji shinpo- expected the Chi-
nese to view Japan rather in the way a student adores his venerable teacher.
The Jiji shinpo-, despite its conversion and concern for China’s welfare, cer-
tainly did not renounce any claims of political dominance, much in the same
way as the new Japanese policy of intellectual exchange was intended to
foster Japan’s influence in China.
Kuga Katsunan
In comparison with Fukuzawa Yukichi, Kuga Katsunan is often depicted as
the more ‘Asian-minded’ and as a champion of protecting China’s integrity.124
However, in the same way as Fukuzawa seemingly departed from his purely
realist stance and came to advocate the protection of China, Kuga Katsunan,
too, moved towards Fukuzawa’s initial position (while still viciously attack-
ing Fukuzawa), and by May 1898 had integrated ‘realist’ power politics ele-
ments into his strategy for East Asia. Thus he began to advocate Japan’s
hegemony in East Asia and a ‘shock therapy’ for China.
Kuga Katsunan’s double role as Asianist and advocate of strong foreign
politics is, incidentally, well illustrated by the organizational role he played in
1898. Being very much an actor behind the scenes, he was one of the func-
tionaries of the ‘Society of like-minded fellows in foreign matters’ (Taigai
do-shi-kai) which was founded at the Kairaku-en in Nippon-bashi in April
1898.125 At the same time, Katsunan was a prominent co-founder of the
To-a-kai, the ‘East Asia Association’, which later in the year merged with
Konoe’s Do-bun-kai. The founding of the To-a-kai, too, took place in May
1898, also at the Kairaku-en and, to a large degree, with the same members
as the Taigai do-shi-kai.126 The identity of time, place and membership of
both organizations shows how closely anti-Russian protest, anti-hanbatsu
agitation and China politics were related, not only intellectually but also
institutionally.
Being a central spokesman of the strong foreign policy movement, Kat-
sunan typically reacted to the Far Eastern Crisis by first attacking Germany
and Russia for their ‘piracy’ and ‘blackmail’ (kyo-haku) of China.127 Their
barbarous behavior heralded the advent of an age of conquest by ‘brute
force’ (juryoku), which ran against all norms of international law and values
of real civilization.128 As motives Katsunan attributed to their actions: cow-
ardice (the need to defuse the political situation in Europe by moving the
conflict further away), social imperialism, in Germany’s case the need to justify
the costs of its new naval expansion program with desultory occupations,
82 The Far Eastern Crisis
and in Russia’s case simple imperialist greed.129 All this was cloaked by a
dubious ‘new interpretation’ of international law, and by blatant racism which
erected arbitrary obstacles to ‘real civilization’ and proved these Western
countries’ interpretation of civilization a sham:
Thus the so-called ‘civilized nations’, by their own greed and cowardice, had
turned into the real ‘barbarians.’
In the same vein, Katsunan attacked the champions of bunmei-shugi in his
own country (and thus Fukuzawa Yukichi prominently among them) who,
through their sole reliance on ‘enriching the country and strengthening the
army’ (fukoku kyo-hei) were no better or more civilized than Germany
and Russia relying on brute force:
[They say:] ‘In the world of today, one cannot protect the country with
empty words [ku-gen], one must necessarily fight with real power [jitsur-
yoku]. If there is not enough real power, one also will not be able to
attain the independence and stability of one’s country. Just look at China
now! The powers of Europe have occupied its strategic points without
hesitation, and this shows the truth that empty words are worthless.’
Thus speak the advocates of civilization [bunmei-ka] and the vulgar
people [zokuhai] in our country with a smug face. What these fellows
call real power means military power and financial power, and one
might say that it corresponds with what the Chinese from olden times
always have called ‘enriching the country and making the army strong’
[fukoku kyo-hei]. If one says fukoku kyo-hei, it sounds quite majestic.
However, when we carefully consider the truth [shinri] by which the
world of man differs from the world of animals, at least in my opinion it
runs counter to civilized thought [bunmei shiso-].
[ … ] The existence of Europe today, does it really originate from the
[mere] animal aspect of humanity, or does it come from justice, freedom,
and brotherhood [seigi jiyu- oyobi hakuai]? This is what I would like to
ask these self-styled advocates of civilization the first thing. And if we
come to problems in international politics, it is just the same: The dip-
lomats who despise justice, freedom, and brotherhood as empty words,
The Far Eastern Crisis 83
those who justify this survival of the fittest [jakuniku kyo-shoku], do they
still want to tell me that civilized diplomacy is like this?131
This finally led Katsunan to attack the government for sympathizing with
Germany and Russia and abetting their deeds by simply looking away:
The thought of the group around the clan politicians [hanbatsu shuzoku]
in matters of foreign policy is either German-style or Russian-style.
Therefore one must see it as the natural outcome that the group around
the clan politicians not only does not consider the actions of Germany
and Russia in our East Asia wrong, but, on the contrary, even has the
tendency to glorify it.132
On the pretext that Japan was ‘not yet ready’, but was still in the midst of the
postwar management program, the government would shirk its responsibility
to protest against the Russian and German actions. However, the arms race
would never stop, and Japan would not be able to catch up with the Eur-
opean powers.133 Thus, on another occasion, Katsunan attacked this policy
of expanding the army while not using it as a simple maneuver of the military
elite to boost its power while being too inept to use it in foreign affairs:
On the one hand they rattle with their sabers and demand the increased
levy of taxes. On the other hand, they cower before the saber and just
pray that everything will be fine on the other side of the coast [ … ]134
For the sake of the ‘true civilization’ (shinsei no bunmei), which as we have
seen Katsunan saw embodied in the French triad of justice, freedom and
brotherhood (seigi jiyu- oyobi hakuai), a ‘truly civilized country’ (shinsei no
bunmeikoku) would always fight, regardless of the state of military preparations
and the relative balance of powers:
For the sake of justice, freedom, and brotherhood ‘within its domain,’ the
United States helped the Cubans against their Spanish oppressors, not
minding the power imbalance, and thus fought a ‘just war’:
Thus the parallels and the identical wording (shujin, ‘master,’ for both the
US position in the Americas and Japan’s envisioned position in East Asia)
strongly suggest that Katsunan envisioned a ‘Monroe Doctrine’ for Japan
in East Asia as well. It should be noted that this led to a conspicuous
re-evaluation of the divisive factors of geography and race. Katsunan in
February 1898 had viewed these factors as ‘obstacles to world civilization’
(sekai bunmei no sho-gai)141 and attacked the Western powers for establishing
artificial barriers between Europe and East Asia. Now, in May 1898, Kat-
sunan relied on the same categories to justify Japan’s position as ‘master’
in East Asia. A similar ambivalence toward the functions of race and
geography was inherent in many visions of Japan’s primacy in East Asia.
Katsunan was not the first to develop the idea of a Japanese Monroe Doc-
trine, but was certainly an early example (Konoe Atsumaro being another
prominent one).142
On occasion of the Shashi riot on 9 May 1898, Katsunan finally declared
that Japan, of all civilized countries, had the principal responsibility to solve
the Chinese Question, which lay at the heart of the Far Eastern Question. In
an essay entitled ‘Our duty to encourage domestic reforms in China: on
occasion of the Shashi outrage’,143 Katsunan argued:
The East Asian Question [To-a mondai], although its manifestations may
be infinite and the matter extremely involved, if we put a conclusion to
it, it all comes down to the first cause that China has not been able to
become a ‘modern state’ [‘kuni’ taru o ezaru koto] in response to the
currents of this century. Supposing China would eventually be able to
build a ‘state,’ the bigger part of the East Asian Question would probably
go away by itself. [ … ]144
For Katsunan, there were eventually two parts to the solution of the Chinese
Question: one was to restrain the territorial ambitions of the Western powers
in East Asia, especially the ‘barbaric’ powers Germany and Russia, and
thereby guarantee China’s integrity. Thus Katsunan argued in June 1898:
86 The Far Eastern Crisis
Therefore, it is a matter of course that our empire, which has to solve the
problem of China, in accordance with the Rescript on the Retrocession
of Liaodong [of May 1895] sooner or later must impose the appropriate
constraints on the actions of Germany and Russia. Today, we must not
limit ourselves to merely protecting the balance of power by busying
ourselves with a strip of the Chinese coast, but for the sake of peace in
the East, nay, of the world, we insist on the preservation of China’s
integrity [Shinkoku no hozen]. In another step, it is the duty of our
empire, due to neighborly friendship but also to what is reasonable in
international intercourse, to render effective assistance to internal
reforms of this country.145
Besides checking the ‘selfish’ powers Germany and Russia, domestic reforms
in China constituted the other part of the solution. Thus, on the occasion of
the Shashi outrage, Katsunan proposed that Japan, in concert with other
‘truly civilized powers’ (Britain, the United States and France), should
undertake to lead China onto the path of reforms. The method of doing so,
however, also included well meant ‘threats’ (kyo-haku):
I always say that, if there were two or three truly civilized countries and
they could work together, they should put pressure on the Chinese gov-
ernment and let it reform the fundamental structures of its political
system. Unfortunately, the powers without exception only heed their
immediate interests and do not care for real, lasting peace. On the con-
trary, they even promote chaos and disaster on the East Asian continent
and privately seem to consider it disadvantageous if the Chinese empire
reformed itself. However, most of the powers have their countries far, far
away, and if they see order or chaos in East Asia, it is as if we would
view some incident in the Mediterranean. Their sense of involvement is
not very strong, and consequently, it is only natural that the intensity
with which they desire for peace in East Asia is so much weaker than
ours. Therefore, although I absolutely do not think the powers to be
uncivilized countries, I do not want to blame them too much for not
attempting a fair and square solution of the East Asian problem at its
roots. The one who must take the lead and apply itself to the solution, is
that not our Japanese Empire?
The Japanese empire, in fact, is Master in the East [To-do- no shu],146
and since we are so lucky that every power comes as a guest here [to
East Asia], is it not possible then that our empire, when receiving those
guests, appeals to them to exert their powers for the foundation of peace
in East Asia? The foundation of peace in East Asia lies in letting the
Chinese empire become a real state in this world of today [Shina teikoku
o shite konnichi no yo ni okeru shinsei no kuni tarashimuru] and the way
to let it become a ‘state’ is to threaten [kyo-haku] the government in
Beijing as the responsible institution. If I say ‘threaten’, it is not with any
The Far Eastern Crisis 87
bad intentions, but because I think that if the situation of the govern-
ment in Beijing does not receive some foreign threat, nothing can be
done. If our empire, as Master in the East, solicits the agreement of
those powers which come as a guest, and voluntarily step forward to
press the government in Beijing for domestic reforms, one could call this
rather a procedure in international relations which answers to the
requirements of the day [konnichi no jigi ni o-zuru kokusai no reiho-].147
The ‘therapy’ which Katsunan proposed for China was based on the now
familiar assumption that foreign pressure would induce a sovereign state to
domestic reforms. Thus Katsunan in May 1898, like Fukuzawa, argued that
what had been good for Japan in the Bakumatsu times must be good for
China now as well.148 China, unfortunately, was very slow to feel the ‘threats
and invitations’ ten times slower than Japan. It had already been more
than 100 years ago that a British envoy had come to China (Katsunan refers
to the Macartney Embassy, 1793), and people in South China were only
gradually feeling the necessity of domestic reforms. Katsunan continued:
But the initial driving force for reform was still not enough to urge the
implementation of the reform thought. Our war with China in 1894/95
for the first time produced some effects. But the persuasion which must
come after the threat has not shown any results, yet. The knowledgeable
people in China, still in the midst of hesitation, merely rely on the for-
eign stimulus [shigeki] to become even stronger. Japan as the advanced
country [senshin-koku] in East Asia should take the lead ahead of the
Western powers and undertake the responsibility. Has not the war of
1894/95 been already a prelude to this?149
Thus the shock therapy of the Sino Japanese War set a precedent and gave rise
to claims for Japan’s further ‘treatment’ of China. It is important to note that
this proposition entailed a remarkable re-evaluation of power, sovereignty and
coercion. Whereas Katsunan had bitterly criticized the actions of Russia and
Germany as ‘barbarous’ infringements on China’s sovereignty and denounced
their acts as ‘piracy’ and ‘blackmail’ (kyo-haku), Katsunan now likewise pro-
posed to ‘threaten’ (kyo-haku) China into undertaking reforms. Moreover, he
let the occupations of Chinese territory suddenly appear in the more positive
light of stepping up foreign pressure.150 Whereas, in the case of Russia and
Germany, Katsunan had criticized the ‘new interpretation’ of international law
to justify their infringement on Chinese sovereignty, he now declared that to
pressure the Chinese government into undertaking reforms constituted ‘a pro-
cedure in international relations which answers to the requirements of the
day.’ Thus we must conclude that ‘barbarism’ and ‘civilization’ were a matter not
of means, but merely of ends, and only a hair’s breadth away from each other.
This leads us to the conclusion of this chapter. While discussing the public
reactions to the Far Eastern Crisis and its aftermath, we have witnessed a
88 The Far Eastern Crisis
number of rather remarkable changes of opinion, often in the very opposite
direction of where they were originally headed, or even performing a double
volte in quick succession. Examples include Fukuzawa’s Paulinian conversion
to become a dedicated Sinophile, and Katsunan’s vision of ‘true civilized
countries’ bullying China into reforms. However, despite the frequent chan-
ges of direction, on the whole we can observe a gradual convergence of these
diverse positions on a common China policy, which amalgamated power
politics and professed idealism, and generally called for China’s protection
and its education, either by soft power or hard force.
The convergence of positions in late Meiji political thought on foreign
relations has been often commented upon. Marius B. Jansen once stated
that, in Meiji political thought, it was often difficult to ‘separate the per-
missible from the aggressive, the promising from the demonic.’151 Similarly,
Banno Junji observed that both Western-style power politics and idealist
(‘Asianist’) positions were indistinguishable in practice, and legitimized the
same strategies, the one being no more (or less) inclined to expansionism
than the other.152
Technically speaking, this convergence and lack of distinction (except for
individual modes of expression) may be attributed to the fact that both
positions, the realist and the idealist, operated with the assumption that the
ends justified the means. Thus civilization became a matter of profession, as
the means could be either ‘brute force’ or benevolent coercion, both being
completely indistinguishable on the outside and depending solely on the
profession of the agent as to their social meaning.
Seen in the wider context, one could argue that this ambivalence was nothing
especially Japanese, but rather proof that Japan’s perspective had widened
and was becoming more and more ‘globalized.’ The historian To-yama Shigeki
once explained the convergence of positions by pointing out the common
‘social practice’ in a country that needed to modernize and protect its inde-
pendence in the face of Western imperialism.153 However, this probably
stresses the antagonist aspect too much. Considering that Japan wanted to
maintain its independence, but at the same time conform to the standard of
‘civilization’ and become part of international society, it is more likely that
what seemed to To-yama the common ‘social practice’ conformed rather to
the common international practice of imperialist thinking and its ingredient, the
‘civilizing mission.’ After all, this concept likewise justified the means of its
realization and accounts for much of imperialism’s ambivalence.154 Thus the
formation of a common China policy in 1898 under the heading Shina hozen,
could also be seen as another proof of Japan’s synchronization with the
world in the late nineteenth century.
4 The Hundred Days Reform, 1898
The Hundred Days Reform in China between mid-June and late September
1898 is one of the causes célèbres in the history of late imperial China. As in
many cases of modern Chinese history, its interpretation is highly contentious.1
Traditional Chinese interpretations (based on Maoist revolutionary premises)
have interpreted the 1898 reform movement as the last and most progressive,
but necessarily failing, reform attempt within the Chinese government before
the revolution in 1911; ‘revisionist’ studies have de-emphasized the significance
of the 1898 reforms, especially downplaying the role of the reformer Kang
Youwei (1858 1927) in favor of the more moderate reform movement, which
began under the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835 1908) after the failure of the
Hundred Days and lasted until the end of the Qing Dynasty. The centennial
of the 1898 reform movement in 1998 has demonstrated a markedly revived
interest in the ‘bourgeois’ reform movement, partly in an effort to ‘use the
past to serve the present.’2 However, Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow have
pointed out that this revived interest could also be explained less ideologically
as an understandable interest in parallel situations: the encounter of China
with two globalizations, one at the end of the nineteenth century and the other
at the end of the twentieth.3
Whatever the interpretation of its historical significance, Japan played an
important role in the Hundred Days Reform, both as a model for modernization
while it lasted, and as a safe exile for some of the reformers when it faltered.
Previous scholarship has focused largely on comparing the Meiji Restoration
with the Chinese reform movement, or on the role that the Meiji
Restoration played in the Hundred Days Reform, especially in the reform
proposals of Kang Youwei.4 Thus it is not surprising that there remain some
popular misunderstandings as to Japan’s actual role and interest in the Reform,
such as that the ‘Hundred Days stirred great optimism in Japan’;5 that
Japanese newspapers and magazines covered the reform movement in some
detail, with special focus on Kang Youwei’s memorials and the emperor’s
edicts;6 and finally, that the Japanese government actively supported the
Hundred Days Reform while it lasted.7 However, none of these is true.
Naturally, considering how urgently Fukuzawa Yukichi, Kuga Katsunan
and many others in Japan had called for reform in May and June 1898, one
90 The Hundred Days Reform
would expect them to greatly welcome the Hundred Days Reform. Yet this
was not the case; on the contrary, a close study of the newspapers reveals
that the Japanese public, for several reasons, did not acknowledge the Reform
as such until it had actually failed, and then received the fact with (some)
pity, but even more so with a ‘we saw it coming’ attitude, and probably also
with elation. It is conspicuous that only after the failure of the Reform did
professions of intimate ‘friendship’ pour forth, and even the most con-
servative government newspaper abandoned its neutrality and joined the
chorus of Shina hozen, which thereby became the universally accepted China
policy among the public. However, at the same time this policy changed in
content: thus, after the failure of the Hundred Days and the Beijing riots,
there is a marked move away from the idea of ‘pressuring’ the Beijing gov-
ernment into undertaking reforms towards the advocacy of direct intervention
to aid and assist China, and this in concert with the Western powers. Thus,
after the Reform, we see China’s star as a sovereign state rapidly sinking and
China increasingly becoming the mere object of Japan and the Western
powers’ joint care and ‘protection.’ Accordingly, discourse on China policy
shifted its focus and increasingly became a discourse on Japan’s relations
with the Western powers concerning China.
The Japanese government, too, remained aloof while the Chinese Reform
lasted. Far from actively supporting it, the short-lived Kenseito- cabinet
-
under Okuma Shigenobu remained faithful to its predecessors’ foreign policy
and was unwilling to take sides. Ito- Hirobumi’s cautious reserve while meet-
ing high officials and even the Guangxu emperor himself in Beijing during
the last days of the Reform bespeaks a similar attitude, and must be seen as
-
representing Japan’s official China policy. Likewise, Okuma and Ito- coop-
erated in the rescue of the reformers after the failure of the Reform,
although new sources show that this was less due to special sympathy with
the reformers (there seems to have been little of that), but more to fulfill the
duty of a ‘civilized nation,’ together with Britain. The same rationale worked
behind the joint intervention with the Western powers against the Boxers two
years later.
One would think that some of Cixi’s alleged predilections (slow dances,
nightly Bacchanalians) would befit an infatuated Tang emperor better than a
hexagenarian imperial dowager. Obviously, Kawasaki wanted to present the
Manchu court as a slough of oriental stagnation, corruption and debauchery,
even if this was at the cost of plausibility. In line with this picture, Kawasaki
presented the Guangxu emperor as the perfect cliché of the degenerate
princeling, a mere imperial presence and a puppet figure of mediocre talents,
entirely dependent on the strong will of his formidable aunt, who was the
real ruler of China.
Kawasaki’s description of the power structure in Peking was, of course,
inaccurate on several points. Cixi was not the sole ruler in 1898, and not
totally opposed to modernizing reforms, as her subsequent reforms show.48
96 The Hundred Days Reform
Guangxu was not a mere nonentity; in fact, in 1898 he was at the height of
his power, of which the Hundred Days Reform was the expression.49 Weng
Tonghe, who Kawasaki described as an ultra-conservative grey eminence,50
was certainly not that; in fact, after the Sino Japanese War, Weng was one
of Kang Youwei’s patrons (until he withdrew his support at the beginning of
1898). Moreover, Weng’s power base was not that unshakeable. After all, in
June 1898 the Guangxu emperor dismissed him, with Cixi’s approval.51
Nonetheless, Kawasaki’s descriptions, especially his portrait of Cixi and
Guangxu, are interesting, also with respect to the modern historiographical
dispute mentioned above. Thus the ‘revisionary’ school claims that the same
images were an invention of Cixi’s malicious enemies Kang Youwei and
Liang Qichao.52 However, Kawasaki demonstrates that such images existed
well before the Hundred Days.
Equally disconcerting was Kawasaki’s analysis of the reform parties, the
Anhui-ha (led by Li Hongzhang) and the Hunan-ha (dominated by Zhang
Zhidong). He argued that Li Hongzhang’s party had the skills for reform,
but the disaster of the Sino Japanese War had caused their fall from
power.53 Moreover, their closeness to Russia had raised distrust among the
people of opportunism and corruption (as an illustration, the Chu-o- shinbun
carried the news item that Li Hongzhang was being accused of having taken
bribes from Russia54). Zhang Zhidong’s party, on the other hand, was the
most popular political group in China at the time. However, its power basis was
in the provinces, and its voice was not heard in Beijing, where the ‘reac-
tionary’ faction insulated the imperial family.55
Conspicuously absent from Kawasaki’s political landscape was Kang
Youwei and his group. In April 1898, Kawasaki provided a list for his read-
ers which ranked more than 80 of China’s most important reformers by
name and official position.56 Many high-ranking patrons and supporters of
the Kang-Liang group were on it. However, neither Kang Youwei himself
nor any of his associates are named. The reason for this may be simple: it
has been argued that organized political action in China prior to 1900 con-
centrated on the bureaucratic community, whose reform-oriented members
have been called the ‘bureaucratic reform constituency.’57 Kawasaki’s list
obviously focused on this important constituency of high-ranking office
holders and automatically did not include the members of the Kang-Liang
group. The latter held positions (if any) which were much too low to qualify
for the ‘constituency.’ Kang Youwei, for example, held a lowly sinecure
position in the Board of Works. The focus on those reformers who did count
bureaucratically, in fact, was another setting of the perspective of all Japa-
nese ‘China watchers’ at the time (and probably, of European ones, as well).
This partly explains the prominence of Zhang Zhidong as a reformer in the
Japanese press from very early on (the Chu-o- shinbun always paid close
attention to Zhang Zhidong’s life and opinions58) and the fact that Kang
Youwei, when he appeared first on the radar of the Japanese press, did so
very much as an ‘annex’ of Zhang Zhidong.59
The Hundred Days Reform 97
Such was Kawasaki’s analysis of the situation in April and late May 1898.
A contemporary reader who would trust Kawasaki’s authority as China expert
would hardly expect a substantial reform in Beijing possible, or at least likely
to happen in the near future. However, it should have become apparent that
Kawasaki was not altogether objective in his observations. Thus it seems that
his sympathies rather sided with revolution instead of reform, and therefore
with the fourth political faction, the revolutionists (kakumei-ha). He pre-
dicted that unless the fundament of government, the structure and organs,
were not reorganized (kaizo-), the Manchu dynasty would not revive. Even if
the Qing government was incapable of such changes (which Kawasaki
believed), the importing of material civilization had made them inevitable:
‘We have to be aware that the progress of these enterprises of civilization
[bunmei-teki jigyo-] will unwittingly produce a revolution of the people’s minds
[jinshin kakumei].’60 Kawasaki saw it as inevitable that the Chinese would
eventually ‘overturn’ (keifuku) the present Manchu-government and erect a
new government.
It is therefore not surprising that Kawasaki until the end would not
acknowledge a substantial reform movement in China. In 22 September 1898,
one day after the end of the Hundred Days (not yet known to Japan), the
Chu-o- shinbun published the first installment of another of Kawasaki’s ana-
lyses, entitled ‘The situation in China is about to change.’61 However, since
Kawasaki in the following series of articles analyzed the situation in exactly
the same terms as he had done in April, this change obviously had nothing
to do with the present situation. One day after the last installment of
Kawasaki’s analysis, news of the failure of the Hundred Days reached Japan.
The enthusiasm of the reform party which rises high in the South
[Hunan] is fairly evident. In Peking, too, there has been the founding of
a Society for the Protection of the Nation [Baoguohui]. [ … ] The
98 The Hundred Days Reform
memorials of the censors and others day by day continue to rally like-
minded fellows for some purpose. This is all very agreeable. However, it
is a pity to see how difficult it is to stem the raging torrents of decline
with only one hand.65
In June, after the Guangxu emperor had issued the reform edict, Shiga com-
mented the development by paying rather more attention to the reformers
than to the edict itself:
The edicts and memorials pouring out daily now are almost invariably
of reformatory contents. Especially edicts with passages such as ‘The idle
talk which, under the pretext of concern for the old and venerable
country, noisily claims that one must resolutely preserve the old statutes
and reject all new laws, is of no help’ [ … ]66 naturally must make the
faction of obstinates [ganko-to-] almost lose their mind. Consequently,
the faction is not involved in the new measures to summon men who are
knowledgeable in current affairs and not tainted by the habits and
thereby provide [the state] with chivalrous men [ninkyo-], and in accept-
ing memorials from all directions with complaints about officials.67 An
edict has been issued to the effect that the emperor today [16 June] will
receive Kang Youwei and the secretary in the Board of Rites Zhang
Yuanji. A decree has been issued to summon Huang Zunxian, who has
been to Japan and is known among Confucian scholars (now, he is salt
intendant and judicial commissioner in Hunan). The Zongli yamen, by
imperial command, is currently considering whether to employ Liang
Qichao of the Shanghai Shiwubao (he is now here, being Kang’s most
brilliant disciple).
Moreover, it is also under deliberation to select and send princes of
the imperial family on a study tour throughout the world. In short, it
seems that the court is intent to carry out a major reform. But, alas, this
is a little bit too late; actually, much too late.68
At this point, it should be noted that the more romantic, radically inspired
authors of the Yorozu cho-ho- were very much inclined towards heroes and
hero worship. Thus, if Shiga indirectly described Kang Youwei and his fol-
lowers as ‘chivalrous men,’ this had an especially positive ring in the ears of
the Yorozu cho-ho- reader, linking them with the venerable tradition of the
Bakumatsu braves who, pure and untainted by petty politics, sacrificed their
lives to change the nation. Around the same time, the Yorozu published a
two-part ‘Treatise on the spirit of chivalry’ (Kyo-fu--ron) in which the writer
called for a renaissance of morality in all parts of Japan’s corrupt society.69
Moreover, ‘chivalry’ made the perfect reformer, because it enabled superior
decisions and heroic resolve (eidan). Also in July 1898, the author of the
-
chivalry article published an article on the new Okuma Cabinet entitled
‘Reforms need bold decision.’ 70
The Hundred Days Reform 99
However, Shiga soon became disillusioned with the political actors in
Beijing in general and made it very clear that, although the times were ideal
for a hero to appear, no such thing would happen. Thus, in another article
only two weeks later, Shiga wrote disparagingly about the history of Chinese
reforms:
When you come to think of it, there are more than one or two instances
in the past that the Chinese court has shown indications that it positively
wanted to take action, start some new projects, instill a new spirit into
the people, do away with bad habits, and start into a new direction
altogether. But in some cases they rather made a mess of it, acting out a
farcical play in helter-skelter fashion [mekura meppo- no kigeki]. More-
over, if the matter at hand finally passed and the danger gradually rece-
ded, as a matter of rule, enthusiasm for reform instantly cooled off, too.
One could use the simile of the frog leaving ripples in the water, but, of
course, this is unacceptable as a regular policy for managing a state.
Even as a cheap comedy [chaban-teki kyo-gen], it had almost no interest.
Most talk about reforms in the past was like that. And with the pre-
sent talk about vigorous action, how should I think that it should be
different?71
Shiga observed that, now that China’s ‘deep dreams’ of greatness were shat-
tered and ‘the paralyzed nerves [mahi seru shinkei] generally are in a vague
state of considerable stimulation and excitement [shigeki ko-fun],’72 it would
be the ideal opportunity for an ‘unusual man’ [hijo- no hito] to reform China
‘with true words and deeds which penetrate metal and stone with sublime
decision [tenrai no eidan].’73 However, there was no such a hero, on the
contrary:
Most of those in power [in Beijing] cannot avoid being fellows of shal-
low knowledge and limited understanding. When it comes to the middle
ranks and below, even if in this ignorance and darkness there appeared
Sâkyamuni himself, he would have troubles in saving them.74
In fact, in the Yorozu cho-ho-, Shiga made it clear that things even had gone
from bad to worse after the personnel reshuffle that accompanied the begin-
ning of the Hundred Days: ‘In the times of Prince Gong and Weng Tonghe,
there existed at least some action and behavior which looked like central
government. But now Wang Wenshao and Sun Jianai, they are like the
so-called ‘walking dead and marching flesh’ [ko-shi so-niku]’.75 Shiga, around
the middle of July 1898, concluded: ‘I am not afraid to state that, otherwise,
there is absolutely nobody who is capable to gain the power of the govern-
ment and the people, of high and low, and to shoulder the expanse of the
‘nine districts of the King of Yu’ [China]’.76 This also applied to Kang
Youwei and his followers.
100 The Hundred Days Reform
Upon his return from China in September 1898, Shiga presented the fruits
of his ‘research’ on the ‘Chinese question’ to the readers of the Yorozu
cho-ho-.77 The reforms received only fleeting attention. They appeared now as
the somewhat erratic product of a reform-minded emperor who adopted the
suggestions of some political ‘outsiders’:
The present reform bills were originally not even the results of govern-
ment planning, but two or three fellows outside government [so-mo- no
hai] have advocated them among the people. By chance, the emperor has
adopted them and, wonderfully enough, some of them even have become
reality.78
In ancient times, the Chinese were more advanced in the sciences than
our country. It has taken a while for our national polity to surpass
China, and for our learning to earn the reputation of surpassing the
teacher. In the sciences and in moral teachings, we have actually made
China our teacher for almost two thousand years. Therefore, we cer-
tainly cannot say that our indebtedness to the Chinese in cultural terms
is small. However, since the opening of our country, our country has
actively adopted the sciences of the West, and just as it was in the case
of the Chinese sciences in the old times, by now we have drawn even
[with the West]. If we look back to the Chinese, they still stubbornly cling
to their old views, exactly like the [proverbial] Meng from Wu [Go-ka no
A-Mo-].90 However, as a result, we and they are in completely different
positions, our relative strength is wide apart, and our fortunes are not
the same.91
On the other hand, even after the Sino Japanese War there remained a
residue of lingering fear that the difference between China and Japan was
not that fundamental and still could be bridged. As we have seen, foreign
observers such as Alfred T. Mahan believed that China, despite its defeat,
still had a high degree of military potential (not to speak of China’s skills in
outmanoeuvring Japan diplomatically), and even such a recalcitrant China
skeptic as Fukuzawa Yukichi was inclined to see indications of this at the
beginning of 1898 (see Chapter 2). Thus it was not unlikely that China, at
some point in time, would revive and resume its course of progress.
This ambivalence translated itself into a theory of the different paces of
progress of China and Japan. Many Japanese in the late Meiji period felt
themselves as part of an ‘accelerated generation.’ It is not a mere accident
that the train and the telegraph, those accelerating ‘tools of civilization’
(bunmei no riki), became the two most often-depicted emblems of progress in
Japan in literature and the arts. Already during the Sino Japanese War,
The Hundred Days Reform 103
foreign observers grudgingly acknowledged that ‘[w]hat Japan has accom-
plished in less than half a century we might almost say within a quarter of
a century it has taken other countries many whole centuries to perform.’92
Similarly, the European opinion that Japan, in 25 years, had made the pro-
gress of many Western centuries was proudly published in Japan.93 More-
over, in 1898 the consciousness of the rapid progress of Japan since the Meiji
Restoration was even more accentuated by the celebrations of the tri-decennial
of the transfer of the capital (tento) to Tokyo (3 September 1868), an act that
visibly marked the beginning of Japan’s modern times. Many newspapers
and magazines such as the Taiyo- devoted whole sections of special issues to
the happy event, with long overviews of the rapid progress in the past 30
years.94
Of course, the speed of Japan’s progress also had its price, and led to
symptoms of exhaustion. Natsume So-seki, at the end of the Meiji era, in a
famous speech on the ‘civilization of present Japan’, argued that with the
stimulus (shigeki) of centuries of European development compressed into
50 Japanese years, the only thing that could be done was to keep Japan’s
speed of development at a certain level so as not to suffer from complete
nervous exhaustion (shinkei suijaku).95 However, despite this criticism of
Japan’s sore state, no-one would have denied that Japan’s accelerated pro-
gress gave an unquestionable advantage in international competition, especially
over China.
China had its own speed of progress, due to its size and mass of popula-
tion.96 Thus, in the Marumaru chinbun caricature of 1879 of the ‘Walking
Match of Civilization’ (see Chapter 1), the spectators jeer at the slower
competitor China with the words: ‘His body is so big, he cannot walk at all,
that’s why he’s been made fun of. Look at that, what a strange, piggy way
[butabuta to oka-Shina fu-] of walking!’97 In March 1898, Fukuzawa wrote
about China’s natural inertia thus:
Finally, Kuga Katsunan a month later explained the fact that Japan had
reacted to ‘foreign stimulation’ long ago and swiftly, but China only recently
and slowly, with the theory:
About the news since this spring of your emperor convening brilliant
people in great numbers and carrying out reforms on all levels, I was
happy, but at the same time worried. I was happy, of course, for your
country that it was moving towards progress and enlightenment. But
why was I worried? Because I was afraid that this reform might be too
sudden and fail. Our Meiji Restoration has certainly not been carried
out in merely two or three years. It has been long in the making and was
the result of the sacrifice of many lives and the suffering of many chan-
ges. Your country in the present case is, in comparison to our Restora-
tion, only in the beginning stage. Not to speak of the fact that the
rashness of the reforms since this spring has deemed us as extremely
dangerous, as your country, although it has international contact longer
than we do, is of a conservative disposition [hoshu-teki kokujo-] which
still preserves the old state of things unchanged [kyu-tai o son suru]. The
present case, as I already said, is but one failure in reforms, and one
certainly must not lose hope. However, for the future, I very much hope
that you learn from the past and will adopt a much more gradual
policy.102
Thus Konoe taught Kang Youwei about the right pace to reform China. Not
surprisingly, the above attitude was also common to Konoe’s Asianist society
Do-bun-kai and to the majority of its successor’s (the To-a do-bun-kai’s)
members.103 Shiraiwa Ryu-hei (1870 1942), for example, China entrepreneur
The Hundred Days Reform 105
and key co-founder of the Do-bun-kai, from early on disliked the ‘radical’
reformers of low or no rank at all around Kang Youwei and favored the
more gradualist Zhang Zhidong and his aide Wang Kangnian (1860 1911).104
This attitude also facilitated the To-a do-bunkai’s severing its tenuous ties with
the Kang-Liang group, when these began to endanger Japan’s relations with
the Chinese court and Zhang Zhidong.
However, it should be stressed again that this attitude itself was hardly
exceptional, but rather was common sense, not only in Japan but also among
European observers (not to speak of the Cixi-friendly Chinese press). The
Japan Mail observed in October: ‘It is believed in Peking that the Legations
[in Beijing] had not much sympathy with Kang Yü-wei [sic] and the other
reformers. They regarded Kang as a visionary who was hurrying the emperor
along much too fast [ … ].’105 European newspapers, too, commented after
the fact at the rashness and amateurishness of the reforms, albeit with much
more open glee and déja vu than the Japanese papers.106
However, the parallel with Western opinion is even more revealing in a
diachronic way. In fact, Konoe’s exhortations towards Kang Youwei in 1898
strongly echo the opinion which the expert on social and political development
at the time, Herbert Spencer himself, had voiced on Japan’s development
prior to the Sino Japanese War. When Spencer, some time before 1890, was
asked for counsel, he advised that political change in Japan should not be
swift and radical, but slow and gradual. However, in 1892, after the pro-
mulgation of the Constitution, Spencer was dissatisfied about its radical ele-
ments and the fact that his advice had not been heeded, and wrote to the
politician Kaneko Kentaro-:
Probably you remember I told you that when Mr. Mori [Arinori], the
then Japanese Ambassador, submitted to me his draft for a Japanese
Constitution, I gave him very conservative advice, contending that it was
impossible that the Japanese, hitherto unaccustomed to despotic rule,
should, all at once, become capable of constitutional government.
My advice was not, I fear, duly regarded, and so far as I gather from
the recent reports of Japanese affairs, you are experiencing the evils
arising from too large an installment of freedom.107
The Kensei-to which has appeared at such a time, is sure to win unpar-
alleled popularity, and already a great party will become greater and
greater as time goes on and the Clan Ministry heaps blunders upon
blunders. A time will surely come, when the clannish statesmen find
the opposition too strong for them to resist and are forced to hand over
the reins of office to the champions of the people. But will that time
come soon?110
The Hundred Days Reform 107
For most, the time came too soon. As little as two days after the above
-
article appeared, on 27 June 1898, the emperor ordered Okuma and Itagaki
to form the new cabinet. Two weeks later, the Japan Weekly Mail observed
about the general mood: ‘It is a curious fact that the present Cabinet, though
it rode into power on the crest of a wave of popular approval, is con-
spicuously without newspaper supporters. We can not recall any instance of
a Ministry so lacking in defenders.’111
As was to be expected, the To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun bitterly opposed the
-
Okuma Cabinet on grounds of principle. Its chief editor, Asahina Chisen, in
a long essay in June 1898, laid out his arguments against party rule.112 In
general, parties bred the pursuit of self-interest, and self-interest ran counter
to the interests of the state. Moreover, no party in Japan today yet possessed
the qualifications to rule. Leaders of a ruling party needed trust (of the
genro-, the administration and the leading intellectuals) and power (in the
Diet, in the administration and in their own party). British parties may fulfill
these conditions, and Prussian parties, too, to some extent, but these had a
long history. The Japanese parties, even though they tried to wear the outer
vestiges of British parties, failed utterly and merely put up ‘an ape’s imitation
of humans, an amateur’s village play’ (saru no hitomane, shiro-to no mura-
shibai). Thus Asahina took recourse to the familiar argument that political
progress in Japan (as in China) must be gradual in order to be substantial,
and that the Japanese parties were not yet ready. As the To-kyo- nichinichi
shinbun rejected the notion that the time for a ‘responsible cabinet’ had
come, the paper also vehemently attacked the ‘pernicious opinion’ of more
ardent Kenseito--supporters that a ‘Second Restoration’ had come.113
The Chu-o- shinbun took a similar position, and asked his readers before the
-
regular start of the Okuma Cabinet: ‘Is the new cabinet an irresponsible
cabinet?’ However, to the Chu-o- this was a rhetorical question. The Chu-o-
114
saw early proof of irresponsibility in the fighting by party members for gov-
ernment office (the so-called ‘office-hunting fever,’ ryokan-netsu). The paper
gleefully registered every new appointment in an ‘Office-Hunting Chronicle’
(Ryokan-roku), and dubbed the new cabinet a ‘party-clan cabinet’ (to-batsu
naikaku).115
The Jiji shinpo- was one of the few newspapers that adapted swiftly to the
new circumstances, very much in harmony with its credo to follow the power
wherever it went. Thus, the newspaper soon withdrew its support of hanbatsu
rule and accepted party rule as the new paradigm of the time. Fukuzawa
typically argued that the founding of the state rested on real power. Rule was
not possible without real power. The Tokugawa had demonstrated this
principle, and now the hanbatsu politicians again. Hanbatsu rule had worked
for some time to uphold political power and maintain public order. How-
ever, since the opening of the Diet, the political situation had gradually
changed and now indicated that politics in future would be decided by pop-
-
ular vote.116 Likewise, when the Okuma Cabinet fell, the Jiji shinpo- shifted
its allegiance back towards the hanbatsu-cabinet of Yamagata Aritomo as
108 The Hundred Days Reform
the new site of power, an act that, in the eyes of the more principled To-kyo-
nichinichi shinbun, was like committing ‘political suicide.’117
The Nippon, too, hailed the imminent demise of the Ito- Cabinet as a time
when the ‘delusions’ (meimu) of hanbatsu rule would be dispelled. To step up
the pressure (or, as he had formulated it in the case of China, to increase the
‘stimulus’), Kuga Katsunan called for a ‘concert of powers’ against the hanbatsu
(much in the same way as he had called upon the civilized powers to ‘stimulate’
and pressure the recalcitrant government in China into reform).118 However,
once the Kenseito- had acceded to power, the Nippon, too, became skeptical
about the ‘Second Restoration.’ Miyake Setsurei, for example, warned:
A still greater disaster would follow the heels of the riots and sweep over
the whole country, unless a radical reform were not speedily introduced
into her administrative system, which is in a most corrupted state.
Fortunately, Japan’s condition is not as yet so deplorable as Italy’s, but
it would be foolish to dream that she is quite free from any impending
danger. To the far-seeing, there are manifest many a sign of an approaching
revolution. It is a very significant fact that there are among the young
and educated class many who are almost desperate as to the future
prospect of this country and think and discuss quite freely that nothing
but fire and blood would purify the country from her corrupted and
dissolute state. In the government, in the society, in the commercial field,
in the religious circle, in short, anywhere and everywhere, one is dis-
mayed to find evils and vices rampant and spreading apace. Were this
110 The Hundred Days Reform
state of things to go on, surely a revolution would come in no distant
future.
[ … ] It will be seen on reading the above that there are many striking
similarities between the condition of this our country and of the diseased
European kingdom. We pray that Japan’s statesmen would take warning
from the sad example by [sic] Italy.127
Thus the radical Yorozu cho-ho- eventually came round to share the opinion
of the ultra-conservative To-kyo- nichinichi a rare sight that Japan was not
yet fit for party rule. In January 1898, the To-kyo- Asahi even called into
question whether Japan was fit for constitutional government at all and
thereby set the erstwhile record, as the Japan Weekly Mail observed.129
Again, the parallels are unmistakable: for China, everybody hoped that the
country would reform, but when the Hundred Days in late September 1898
faltered, nobody was surprised. For Japan, many wished for a ‘responsible’
-
party cabinet, but when the Okuma Cabinet faltered, most were elated and
welcomed Yamagata. Thus in a sense the Hundred Days and the three
months of party reign elicited a structurally common, if not conscious psy-
chological reflex among the Japanese public. And just as the fall of the party
cabinet did not lead to chaos and destruction, the end of the Hundred Days
did not lead to the end of the Sino Japanese rapprochement, but on the
contrary, elicited even more accentuated professions of friendship on the
Japanese side, as we shall see presently.
How eager China is in its reform one might guess even from the one
detail of how Marquis Ito- is being treated. The way everybody here,
officials and the people, welcomes Marquis Ito-, goes beyond the imagi-
nation of my countrymen. [ … ] They view Marquis Ito- as if he was the
savior of East Asia [To-a no kyu-seishu], and it is being said that every-
body, beginning with the Emperor and, of course, the reform party, but
even the conservative faction [shukyu-ha] are impatiently awaiting Mar-
quis Ito-’s coming to the capital, wanting to ask him whether in reforms,
too, there should be some order [kaikaku ni mo junjo aru beshi].138
-
On the day following the arrival, Ronglu gave a banquet for his guests. Ooka
observed among the guests some former ‘enemies,’ namely Nie Shicheng, a
famous army commander in the Sino Japanese War, and also Yuan Shikai,
former Korean Resident and now commander of the ‘Newly Organized
Army’ at Tianjin. Little did the Japanese guests know that Ronglu and Yuan
Shikai, barely more than a week after the banquet, would become the two
key figures in ending the Hundred Days Reform abruptly by ousting the
-
reformers. Instead, Ooka described the banquet as bathed in the spirit of
friendship and goodwill:
Now, high and low are greatly excited and vent the opinion that a
change of the political system and reforms is the best way to achieve
wealth and power. As a result, there are many debaters who insist on
learning from the precedents of our Restoration and the reforms and
eagerly worship Japan. Among them, there are even some who petition
that the Chinese emperor visit Japan. Thus, one never sees anyone who
voices resentment about the past. They fervently praise the prescience of
The Hundred Days Reform 113
Japan and applaud the sagacity of Marquis Ito-. There are some who have
already memorialized to the Commander-in-Chief [Ronglu], saying that
one should ask Ito- about political change and reform and then establish
its method and order, or that one should memorialize to the Throne
to invite Marquis Ito- and make him advisor, etc.139 However, Ronglu
does not wait for such propositions and over and over again eagerly
begs Marquis Ito- to teach him. Yet, he does not adopt the proposi-
tion to make Marquis Ito- an advisor, as this would be offensive to
Marquis Ito-.140
In contrast to this exuberant spirit, Ito-’s reactions seem rather cool. The
-
frequent questions about the ‘good order’ (this question turns up on Ooka’s
141
report in an almost formulaic manner ) obviously pointed at the entren-
ched domestic political debate about how to reform China, and Ito- clearly
did not want to meddle in this. When, on 14 September 1898, Ito- met Prince
-
Gong and three other ministers in Beijing,142 Ooka observed Ito-’s reaction
to the standard question as to the ‘order of priority’ in reforms as follows:
At this, Ito- very much suppressed his usually boisterous ways [tokui no
cho-shi o osaete], assumed an extremely reserved manner and merely
answered on the main points.143
The ministers kept questioning, but Ito- did not venture any more detailed
comments on the point.
The formal highlight of Ito-’s visit in Beijing was the audience with the
-
Guangxu emperor on 20 September 1898. Ooka left a minute report of this
144
which, literally, went around the world. However, considering the antici-
pation of the event, and the pomp and circumstance that accompanied it,
the meeting itself was strangely anti-climactic. The audience lasted only 15
minutes,145 and the recorded conversation between the emperor and Ito-
consisted of an exchange of pleasantries bordering on the meaningless. This
may have been unexpected as, merely two weeks earlier, the emperor had
sent two of his ministers to the acting Japanese minister Hayashi Gonsuke
(who was present at Ito-’s audience) to solicit a close cooperation with
Japan.146 However, we know that a day before the audience took place, the
Empress Dowager had returned to the Forbidden City, presumably, as Luke
S. Kwong put it, ‘to ensure that Kuang-hsu’s meeting with Ito- the next day
would occasion nothing more than an exchange of kind wishes,’147 and so it
-
did. Ooka, too, writes about a rumor that the Empress Dowager had been
worried about the recent reforms and had secretly listened behind the cur-
tains during Ito-’s audience.148 It has been observed that the Guangxu
emperor usually seemed fearful and inarticulate in Cixi’s presence,149 which
-
matches with the impression Ooka’s record of the audience gives.
-
Just as Ito remained reserved towards the bureaucratic constituency of the
reforms, he behaved neutrally towards the Kang-Liang group. Presumably on
114 The Hundred Days Reform
the afternoon following the audience (20 September), Ito- also met Kang
Youwei at the Japanese embassy.150 The meeting must have been a brief one, too,
as Kang Youwei was leaving Beijing that evening. Kang’s ‘Autobiography’
thus devotes merely a fleeting reference to the meeting.151 Ito- himself, in his
speeches and letters, never acknowledged having met Kang. Already on Ito-’s
arrival, a member of the Japanese embassy had warned him about Kang,
that he was ‘frivolous’ and a ‘troublemaker,’152 which was, as we have seen,
the general opinion of the diplomatic corps in Beijing. Five days after Cixi’s
return to power, Ito- reported the events back home, but conspicuously made
no mention of Kang:
Thus, apart from a certain spiritual closeness to Japan, there was nothing
apart from their sympathies towards Japan rather than Russia which com-
mended the reformers into the special care of Ito- and the Japanese government.
And yet, Japan actively worked for their rescue.
The Hundred Days Reform 115
The duty of a civilized country: Japan’s rescue of the reformers
-
All the reformers who Ooka mentioned above, except Kang and Liang, were
summarily executed on 28 September 1898.155 That Kang and Liang and other
reformers could escape or were saved was, in no small measure, due to coop-
eration between the British and Japanese authorities.156 Kang, with British
assistance, arrived on 29 September in Hong Kong, where he stayed at the
British police barracks until he moved on to Japan. Liang Qichao, on 21 Sep-
tember 1898, took refuge at the Japanese Legation and asked for protection
-
(Ooka presumably met him there). The acting minister in Beijing, Hayashi,
-
cabled to Okuma that, fearing that Liang Qichao’s presence might ‘create
suspicion on the part of China’ and give offence to the Chinese government,
he had advised Liang to leave Beijing the next day.157 Liang cut off his tail, put
on a European dress and, escorted by the Japanese consul Tei Nagamasa,
left Beijing. Under the protection of Japanese warships, he and the reformer
Wang Zhao were taken aboard a Japanese cruiser, just when he was about to
-
be apprehended by Chinese troops.158 Moreover, Prime Minister Okuma gave
instructions to Hayashi that he, either singly or conjointly with other repre-
sentatives of foreign powers, should advise the Chinese government to refrain
from extreme measures and exercise moderation in all respects.159 Unfortu-
-
nately, the six reformers were executed on the very day Okuma sent off the
telegram. Two more reformers escaped to Japan.160 Ito- Hirobumi himself, partly
for personal reasons, actively participated in rescuing the politician Zhang
Yinhuan (1837 1900) and Huang Zunxian from execution or imprisonment.161
The remarkable outburst of activity of the Japanese government after the
failure of the Hundred Days has traditionally been attributed to two causes.
The first was the influence that strong foreign policy advocates, especially
-
members of the To-a-kai and Do-bun-kai, exerted on Okuma.162 However,
this argument can be ruled out, as Ito- in Beijing defended the rescue mea-
sures, and was certainly under no pressure. The second reason is seen in a
fear that suppression of the reform movement by the Qing government
would create another surge of anti-foreign sentiment in China and destabilize
China even further.163 There was a small anti-foreign riot on 30 September
1898 in Beijing (see below). Yet the rescue maneuvers seem unrelated to this
event, and the above argument fails to explain how suppression of the
reform movement specifically would create anti-foreign agitation.164
Thus the question remains why the Japanese government, despite its pre-
vious hands-off policy and the uncertain reputation of the reformers, none-
theless went to such trouble. In the light of the new sources, we would argue
that Japan felt compelled to rescue the reformers less by the care for their
personal safety or sympathy for China’s reforms, but by concern for Japan’s
image as ‘pioneer of civilization’ in East Asia. After all, rescuing and taking
up political refugees is simply what a civilized country (such as Britain, with
which Japan cooperated) would do to meet the ‘standard of civilization’ as
prescribed by international law.
116 The Hundred Days Reform
On 24 September 1898, immediately after the end of the Hundred Days,
-
Li Hongzhang invited Ito- Hirobumi and Ooka Ikuzo- to a private dinner at
-
his house.165 Again, Ooka’s record of the conversation as published in the
Chu-o- shinbun went around the world: the Shanghai-based North-China
Herald republished it in translation, the London Standard took it from there,
-
and was in turn quoted by the New York Times.166 Ooka describes part of
the conversation as follows.
Readers in Japan, Britain and the United States at the time will have readily
understood that the apprehension of the ‘criminal’ in London to which Li
Hongzhang referred meant the famous ‘kidnapping’ of Sun Yat-Sen in
November 1896. The authorities had planned to ship Sun back to China and
execute him there, but, due to British intervention, had to release him after
12 days. Much to the chagrin of the Chinese authorities, soon afterwards
Sun published an account of this incident under the title Kidnapped in
London (1897), which made him instantly famous around the world, and
greatly aided his funding activities for revolutionary causes (for example in
Japan). Thus, as in Kang’s case, it was the persecution that made Sun
famous at first.
The duties of ‘civilization’, which Britain had performed for Sun, Japan
was now to render to Kang and his group. All ‘civilized’ states since about
1840 refused to extradite persons whose offences were political, and especially
Britain’s definition of ‘offences of a political character’ was most liberal.168
This was well known in China, and Kang’s case was discussed in close par-
allel with that of Sun Yat-sen.169 Nonetheless, the Chinese court and, even
more important to Japanese interests in China, Governor-General Zhang
Zhidong kept insisting that Japan should hand over or extradite Kang Youwei
and his followers.170 The foreign ministry under the new Yamagata Cabinet
in December 1898 eventually yielded to the pressure and decided to persuade
Kang to leave Japan for America. However, even then, this was not done
directly, but through the good offices of Konoe Atsumaro and his To-a
The Hundred Days Reform 117
do-bun-kai, which also funneled the travel expenses for Kang. Moreover, it
was agreed that this concession to Chinese pressure would be limited to
Kang. Thus Konoe voiced the concern that if Japan would lean too hard
upon the reformers, Japan’s international image as a law-abiding country
might suffer.171 Although Zhang Zhidong had asked for Liang Qichao’s
extradition as well, and repeatedly demanded that Liang’s Qingyibao in
Yokohama be shut down, the Japanese government granted neither, as
befitted a ‘truly civilized country.’
Thus, far from talking about China as a friend, the Nichinichi shinbun saw
Ito-’s visit to China as a good opportunity to normalize Sino Japanese relations
and possibly attract more Chinese to come to Japan and acquire a first-hand
understanding about Japan.
Barely two months later, and only a few days after the failure of the Hundred
Days, however, the Nichinichi suddenly changed course and, in a first reaction,
offered Japan’s sincere friendship and assistance:
Thus, in later reaction, the Nichinichi downplayed the Hundred Days as a simple
power game which bore no relation to the question of reform, because every
group in China served the public good, the ‘project of civilization.’
The idea of reform in China has started by taking advantage of the utter
deterioration of the government in Beijing. But it would be not correct
to say it was a controversy between Manchus and Han Chinese, or a
controversy between a civilization faction and an anti-civilization fac-
tion. I would rather say it was a controversy between those who wanted
to maintain the status quo [genjo- o iji sen to suru] and those who wanted
to break the status quo. After all, the inclination to develop civilization
in China is not limited to the emperor and the reform faction alone.
The Empress Dowager and those who have restored her position, have
it, as well. Rather than a controversy about issues [taibutsu-teki], one
should better say, it was a controversy about personalities [taijin-teki]. It
was not a controversy about the project of civilization [bunmei jigyo-],
but a controversy about position and power [ichi kenryoku].178
Thus even the To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun, by the end of 1898, discarded its former
hands-off policy and advocated domestic intervention for the sake of China’s
inner stability. In fact, the Nichinichi quite actively advocated sending foreign
troops into China to restore order, and even attributed a special role to Japan:
This shows that when the question arose in 1900 whether to participate in an
expedition to subdue the Boxers or not, the positive answer had already been
given, at least in theory, by the end of 1898.
However, it should be noted that the To-kyo- nichinichi time and again stres-
sed the necessity of acting in coordination with the Western powers, lest there
be any misunderstanding of Japan’s motives and China become the bone of
contention among the powers, which would lead into another major conflict.
But if, after the partition, boundary issues cannot be settled diplo-
matically and become a matter of life and death, then the partition of
that country, on the contrary, would bring disaster over the whole world.
[ … ] this is the reason why I think it much better to preserve the integrity
of the territory [Shinkoku no kokudo o hozen suru].184
Civilization and the tight web of international relations would not allow for
unilateral, ‘heroic’ actions. And besides, territorial possessions were more a
burden than a blessing, as the example of Taiwan showed:
To claim that one should destroy one of the biggest empires of the world
and annex this huge territory and large population is a rather extra-
vagant statement. The heroes in the past [like Toyotomi Hideyoshi] have
frequently devised such grand schemes. However, at that time, the world
was still uncivilized. Therefore it certainly cannot have been too difficult
to plan such a thing. But they rarely succeeded. There might be times when
they succeeded. But I have never heard that a way has been found to pre-
serve it forever. But today, humanity has developed, and there is no room
for the magic of heroes [eiyu- no majutsu] any more. The web of interna-
tional relations has grown ever tighter and does not allow one nation to
wield its hand freely any more. Under such circumstances, who would
devise again such a grand scheme against all common sense? But that
aside, I understand that the goal of life is to enjoy the blessings of peace. One
must realize that to acquire territory and to subjugate people is absolutely
not to one’s own advantage. This is the result of what in this century every
122 The Hundred Days Reform
nation has experienced in its history of colonization. [ … ] It is certainly
not surprising that, after we acquired Taiwan, we are so much troubled
by the suppression of the local rebels [dohi] and by financial losses.185
Thus all arguments spoke for a joint protection of the integrity and stability
of China and, to some degree, for supporting the central power in Beijing,
irrespective of who was in power. After all, weak as it may be (and, from the
standpoint of the powers, should be), in the era of the ‘new imperialism,’
Beijing, willy-nilly, fulfilled the crucial role of a regulator for the Western
powers.186 A British observer, whose opinions on ‘the future of China’ the
Nichinichi introduced to its readers, explained this role as follows:
The above arguments are quite telling when compared with the situation in
the Sino Japanese War. The European powers in 1894 95 feared that the
war would destabilize China and eventually lead to conflict among the
Western powers about the ‘realignment’ of territories. Moreover, for com-
mercial reasons as well, Britain would have very much wished for a con-
tinuance of the status quo. In 1895, The Times commented that if ‘China
could have been guaranteed to remain in a torpid condition, if Japan had
not suddenly awakened to a consciousness of her naval and military strength
and begun to use it, we should, perhaps, have been better pleased to go on as
we have done for two or three generations.’188 It tells much about the radi-
cally changed Japanese self-perception by the end of 1898 that the To-kyo-
nichinichi shinbun echoed the very same sentiments and that, by now, Japa-
nese observers saw their own country safely positioned among the interven-
ing powers, rather than being the target of an intervention.
-
Okuma Shigenobu’s To-ho- kyo-kai-speech, October 1898: the domestication
of China
Nothing could illustrate the consolidation of China policy at the end of 1898
better than the fact that the To-kyo- nichinichi espoused the same doctrines as
-
its arch-enemy Okuma Shigenobu. The hanbatsu-friendly To-kyo- nichinichi
The Hundred Days Reform 123
- -
was notorious for hating Okuma, and during the Okuma Cabinet it did
-
everything to bring it down.189 Although the foreign policy of Okuma did
not significantly differ from Ito-’s, now it was the Nichinichi’s turn to defame
-
it as ‘vacillating and indecisive’ (injun kosoku)190 and to ridicule Okuma’s
foreign policy as ‘the hobby of an amateur’ (heta no yokozuki).191 Yet nothing
reveals the striking similarities of both positions better than the famous speech
-
that Okuma Shigenobu delivered at the Imperial Hotel to the members of
the To-ho- kyo-kai (Oriental Association) in late October 1898.192
-
The fate of Okuma’s To-ho- kyo-kai speech in historiography is an interesting
topic in itself. It has been variously cited as the locus classicus of a distinctive
-
Shina hozen-ron of Okuma, although, as we have seen, the term Shina hozen
was already a common notion at the time.193 Western literature has the
-
Shina hozen-ron also as ‘Okuma Doctrine,’ the content of which is popularly
-
known as follows: ‘Foreign minister Okuma Shigenobu contributed a rationale
-
for government policy with this “Okuma Doctrine” under which Japan, long
a recipient of China’s culture and spirit in the past, would now repay its debt by
holding the West at bay to provide the time necessary for China to reorganize
-
under new leadership.’194 However, this interpretation of Okuma’s speech
probably reflects unwillingly an interpretation of the Shina hozen-ron on the
-
eve of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’195 Okuma’s speech of
1898 transported a different message, the main difference of which was that
-
Okuma said nothing about ‘holding the West at bay’ but on the contrary
even suggested the cooperation with the Western powers in intervening in
China and thus was close to To-kyo- nichinichi’s concept of Shina hozen.
The public speech of an acting foreign minister on foreign affairs was a
rare event at a time of secret diplomacy and thus received wide attention
accordingly. Many newspapers (such as the To-kyo- nichinichi) published full
-
transcripts of the long speech and commented on it. Okuma was well aware
of the fact and used the opportunity to defend himself; the self-deprecating
reference to the Nichinichi’s jibe of heta no yokozuki in the opening of the
speech reflects this intention.196 Unfortunately, the speech itself was a some-
what incoherent piece of work (a fact duly remarked on by the newspapers).
The first half consisted of an overview of the history of Chinese relations
with the ‘barbarians’ (starting from the Zhou), and only the latter half was
devoted to the present Sino Japanese relations and the recent motion of the
Russian czar for global disarmament, a topic that very much occupied the
minds of the people at the time.197 Moreover, the logic of the speech even to
contemporary listeners sometimes remained obscure.198 However, the Nippon
-
summarized Okuma’s theses succinctly (and correctly) as follows:
Thus, with respect to the duty to lead one of the biggest nations of the
world [ … ] it is most befitting that China is led by a neighboring
The Hundred Days Reform 125
country, a country whose race is close, whose writing is the same, and
whose feelings are the same. If such a country would lead, it could
pretty much make China flourish. And supposed it would not flourish,
then like it or not a responsibility for the Japanese would arise from
this to rescue the Chinese from the present state of wretched misery. In
this, there is no other country on the world, no matter how powerful it
is, which possesses such advantages in China as Japan does. Moreover, it
is close, and also speaking from the point of power, it is a strong country
whose power in East Asia is absolutely not inferior to any in the world.
It is a strong country, but it has no intention to attack and take some-
body else’s territory by means of this power (at this point, someone
shouted ‘Retrocession of Liaodong!’),203 it has no such intention in the
least. It has absolutely no intention of robbing. But, as I have said
before, one cannot take away somebody else’s country, but if somebody
else offers it, in this case a gift not accepted, on the contrary, brings
evil (applause). Then one must accept it, like it or not.204
-
Such ambiguous remarks naturally inspire suspicions that Okuma really
advocated the division of China, or at least Japan’s appropriation of Chinese
-
territory. However, it is doubtful whether Okuma’s remarks should be taken
at face value and not primarily as protestations of a strong intention to
please and appease the audience (among whom, as the shouts indicate, were
-
strong foreign policy advocates). As we have seen above, Okuma was criti-
cized for his weak and dilatory policy. It is in this light that the gloss should
-
be read which Okuma noted beside a similar passage of the draft speech
mentioned above: ‘This vaguely hints that if there was no other choice, Japan
as an appropriate measure of defense would divide China, too. I thereby
respond to the present public opinion which decries the foreign policy of the
present cabinet as inactive [mui]. However, it is important that this point
must be stated extremely carefully and also in vague terms.’205 Indeed, the
point had to be stated extremely carefully and in vague terms because
-
Okuma as well as any other statesman (and the To-kyo- nichinichi) knew
that the international situation in China allowed for neither taking nor
‘accepting’ any additional territory in China.
The founding of the To-a do-bun-kai: the wane of China’s polarizing power
In November 1898, the two societies To-a-kai and Do-bun-kai merged to form
the To-a do-bunkai (with Konoe Atsumaro as its president). The initial reason
-
for doing so was to pool government funding, as Okuma was unwilling to
finance two independent societies of the same kind. The history of the To-a
do-bunkai, which eventually became the most important semi-official society
operating on the continent until 1945, has been sufficiently well studied and
does not need further explication here.206 Let it suffice to say that the society,
at its first meeting, decided on the following goals:
126 The Hundred Days Reform
to protect China’s integrity and stability [Shina o hozen su];
to aid China’s improvement [Shina no kaizen wo josei su];
to investigate current affairs in China and decide upon appropriate
actions;
to rouse public opinion [kokuron o kanki su].207
Again, Kuga Katsunan was a co-founding member of the society and played
an important role in formulating its goals. Consequently, his newspaper
Nippon, in accordance with the manifesto, redoubled its efforts to ‘rouse
public opinion’ and began to advocate the new, domestically oriented Shina
hozen-ron. In October, for example, Miyake Setsurei called upon his readers
‘Pour your energies into China!’208 However, this was gradually becoming
mainstream public opinion, as we have seen, and there was actually no special
need to rouse public opinion any further.
Although the new China policy soon became widely accepted, it is a telling
characteristic of the strong foreign policy agitation that it would, nonetheless,
keep on attacking an imaginary opponent and assume an air of elitist protest
while it could. This is best illustrated by an article that Konoe Atsumaro
wrote for the first edition of the society’s organ To-a jiron on ‘The position of
our empire and today’s politicians.’209 In this article, Konoe complained
about the stupidity of the world, and glorified the martyrdom of like-minded
chivalrous men who fought for China’s integrity:
It should be obvious that by the time Konoe’s article was published (December
1898), his defiant and elitist attitude was slightly anachronistic. If even the
ultra-conservative To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun, the organ of Konoe’s ‘so-called
politicians,’ had adopted the Shina hozen-ron, it was ludicrous of Konoe to
declare that this was the opinion of a small elite and speak of its ‘suppres-
sion.’ Especially so when the To-a do-bun-kai, around the same time, busied
itself in applying for government funding, and in April 1899 received a promise
from Foreign Minister Aoki Shu-zo- for secret funding and hence became a
The Hundred Days Reform 127
semi-governmental organization.211 However, the shishi-spirit of the strong
foreign policy advocates was often elitist and rebellious on principle and
demanded polarization, even if there was no real opposition.
Yet even the strong foreign policy advocates finally had to realize that
China, in public opinion, had become uncontentious and had lost its polar-
izing power. The strong foreign policy movement gradually shifted its atten-
tion away from China and began to focus solely on Russia as political
opponent. The Boxer Incident very clearly demonstrates the finality of
China’s effacement from the political landscape as an antagonizing power
(although China remained of interest as an object of aid and intervention),
and the rise of Russia instead.
5 The Boxer Incident and beyond,
1900–04
The Boxer Uprising of 1900, during which discontented Chinese, the so-
called Boxers, besieged the diplomatic settlement in Beijing and finally
fought and lost against an allied force from eight foreign countries (Japan
among them), is another seminal event in modern Chinese history. In Chi-
nese historiography, it is fraught with a symbolic power that has even
increased over time.1 For Japan, however, the Boxer Uprising marks the
visible effacement of China as a sovereign actor from political discourse, and
the rise of Russia instead as the new polarizing power.
The Boxer Incident brought Japanese soldiers back to China and, finally,
to the gates of Beijing. However, the circumstances of the campaign radically
differed from the war with China six years before, at least in the eyes of the
Japanese public. Consequently, the public attitude also differed markedly
from the exuberant jingoism of the war days. The Boxer Uprising at first was
conceived as a primarily anti-Christian disturbance of passing significance
and therefore no business of Japan. When the British government requested
the Japanese government to send more troops than originally planned, this
was understood as an invitation for Japan to join the ‘club’ of civilized
powers, and the participation was viewed as an intervention for the sake of
civilization. Due to the dogma of ‘Sino Japanese friendship,’ it could not be
viewed as a war anyway. However, the war reports of the Boxer expedition
visibly demonstrate that calling China a ‘friend’ eventually meant the total
loss of China as an independent power in the eyes of the Japanese public.
Thus China was completely ignored in the event, and reports focused solely
on Japan’s competition with the Western powers, hinting at the rising tension
with Russia. The Japanese public therefore soon lost interest in the Boxer
expedition itself, and turned towards the ‘real thing,’ confrontation with
Russia.
Such opinions were not taken lightly in Japan. As is well known, the Japanese
Foreign Ministry thereupon launched a systematic campaign to influence the
European and American press, and spent considerable sums to buy itself into
the good opinion of the press, this time on a much grander scale than during
the Sino Japanese War.10
The Qing court, in the meantime, seemed to have second thoughts about
its rash support of the Boxers. At the beginning of July 1900, the Chinese
emperor sent telegrams to the heads of state of six powers, including Japan.11
The imperial telegram addressed to the Japanese emperor was transmitted to
foreign minister Aoki on 11 July 1900. Its intention was to persuade Japan
to mediate between China and the powers. Typically, the telegram invoked
China’s and Japan’s close historical and strategic ties (‘lips and teeth’), and
tried to suggest a common interest of action against the Western powers. The
Qing court argued that there was a divide between East and West, with
China and Japan as pillars of the East. The Western countries were already
seeking prey, and it was not only China they were after. If China could not
support itself any more, Japan, too, would have difficulties in supporting its
independence. Therefore the Chinese emperor hoped that Japan would take
the lead and ‘restore the situation.’12
However, the Japanese government, despite similar professions of do-bun
-
doshu in informal talks, certainly had no intention of reciprocating such
sentiments in front of the Western powers. Thus the Japanese government,
in the name of the emperor, rather coolly replied that, so far, China had
not been able to rescue the diplomats and subdue the rebels, although
international law required it to do so. If the Chinese government would only
do this, it could easily speak for itself in all other matters. Japan sent its
troops only to rescue and subdue, and for no other reason. The telegram
continued:
Therefore, if you will swiftly rescue all foreign envoys from amidst the
siege, this will suffice as proof that you do not wish to wage war. You
must extinguish the causes of the disaster by yourself. The Japanese
government, of course, feels deep sympathy and friendship for your
government. If and when it thinks it really necessary, Japan will not dare
to refuse to exert its powers. [ … ]13
132 The Boxer Incident and beyond
Thus the Japanese government briskly ignored all rhetoric of solidarity and
made it sufficiently clear that its position was with the allied powers. Not
surprisingly, the Japanese response met with approval within and outside
Japan.14 Thus Japanese ‘sympathy and friendship’ extended itself towards
China freely only when no other power was watching.
The progress of the military campaign is quickly told: on 14 July 1900, the
allied forces consisting mainly of Japanese and Russian soldiers took the
walled city of Tianjin and placed it under foreign control (until August
1902).15 On 4 August the forces marched on to Beijing, and attacked the
Chinese besiegers on 14 August. After the siege was broken, soldiers of the
foreign troops burnt, looted and killed. Meanwhile, the Empress Dowager
and the Emperor had fled the city; already on 7 August, Li Hongzhang had
been appointed to sue for peace.
In October 1900, negotiations finally started with the allied powers and
ended with the Boxer Protocol, signed on 7 September 1901. Japan was one
of the 11 Protocol powers. The protocol provided for another huge indem-
nity, which was spread over 39 years; the Protocol powers, however, remitted
their shares during the next decades, with the stipulation that they be used
for cultural purposes (such as sending students abroad).16 Moreover, the
protocol stipulated the dismantling of the fort of Dagu and the right of the
powers to station guards for their own defense in Beijing, both of which
foreseeably rendered China’s independence illusory, at least as far as the
central government in Beijing was concerned.
However, despite all this, the Japanese public refused to call the conflict a
war, even when seeing it. The decision was motivated by several reasons,
each of which implied that China’s international status had by then reached
a nadir.
The most extreme reason given at the time was that the conflict could
not be measured by Western international law, as China was outside the
pale of law. An editorial in the To-kyo- nichinichi shinbun argued that China
had neither the will nor the power to accept and exact international law,
hence was no ‘regular subject’ of international law. The allied powers
should deal with China flexibly, under whatever heading, and not bound
by legal precedence. After all, international law was a consensual affair
among its practitioners, and the allied forces in their actions created new
precedence, thus acting simultaneously in a legislative and executive function,
as it were.26
Such a bold view could not go uncontested. The renowned international
lawyer Ariga Nagao (1860 1921) responded to the Nichinichi’s sally on
international law as follows:
And indeed none of the Japanese who live in the large cities can long go
about with the idea that all the Chinese are their enemies, for the Chi-
nese Minister is still in Tokio, and the Chinese officers who left for home
some time ago were seen off in the most friendly manner by great num-
bers of their Japanese fellow officers. And indeed any Japanese that you
speak to on the subject will at once tell you that China is regarded by
Japan as her best friend and that the Japanese have only gone to the
Celestial Empire to put down rebels whose ill-advised action may lead to
the partition of that Empire.32
Thus the sportive contest as to who might hoist the flag first was solved amiably
between Japan and Britain. After all, they were soon to be allies (the rather
crude illustration of Fort Dagu, which accompanied the narrative, however,
sets things right: two Japanese flags fly over the fort).
However, one should not be deceived by ‘sportiveness’ when it came to other
nations. In a crooked, Churchillian sense of ‘chivalry,’ Japanese soldiers com-
peted ‘amiably’ with other soldiers, who they would have to shoot four years
later. The tension was not lost to onlookers. The North-China Herald observed:
Despite the harmony, foreign observers, too, eventually noticed the con-
tinuous slights in the Japanese press at their expense. The North-China
Herald observed that the Europeans as a matter of course, but especially the
Russians, were the target of the invective:
The Japanese also believe that they have very much over-estimated the
Russian soldier as a fighting machine. [ … ] It is not the Russian soldier
alone that has fallen in the estimation of the Japanese, but the European
soldier, be he Russian, English, French, or German. ‘The European
soldiers seem,’ says the very able war-correspondent of the ‘Nippon,’ ‘as
compared with the Chinese even, to have undergone what I may call a
species of literary effeminacy. The Chinese are certainly better fighters,
in my opinion, than the much-dreaded Cossacks.’49
‘Don’t pardon anyone, don’t take any prisoners, use your weapons!’ This
means ‘Kill all, and every Chinese soldier!’ and is a dictum which is
placed outside of the norms of international law. To put it strongly, one
could say that the German Emperor orders the expedition corps which
he is sending off to China almost to commit a massacre. We don’t have
to lose a word about the barbaric behavior of the Chinese, but as the
sovereign of a magnificent civilized nation [do-do- taru bunmei-koku] to
order one’s troops to commit a massacre, is not that an even more
extreme occurrence directed against civilization [hi-bunmei no dekigoto]
than the Chinese?!54
However, the brunt of the censure was borne by Russia, as usual. The Tokyo
correspondent of the North-China Herald observed:
Life in the camps was idler than we had thought. Telling us that it was
too dangerous, we were not allowed to observe the fighting. We were
shut up in a separate room inside the headquarters, and there was
nothing else to do but idling away the whole long day by reading,
drinking, and having heated discussions. [ … ] The censorship of the
authorities concerning our manuscripts was not strict, it was brutal.
Except for what the person in charge told us, no other information was
admitted. The little that was admitted was checked even for the words
we used. Being someone who lives by language [moji o motte tatsu], I did
not feel too pleased with fellows from the military meddling with my
articles.57
Consequently, two days after Taoka had arrived in Tianjin, he and a large
group of other reporters decided that their presence was dispensable and
headed back to Japan.
Thus, if we try to compare the white and the yellow military man, there
naturally may be some particular strong and weak points, but the Japanese
The Boxer Incident and beyond 143
progress in the military field is absolutely not inferior to the white man.
The eyes of the world will equally acknowledge this fact, too, especially
since in the present North China Incident, we became the spearhead of
the allied forces, and their main force, and put on a brilliant perfor-
mance. The war achievements of the Japanese army in 1894/95 have
been huge, and, in fact, its courage and valor have startled the world.
However, since there was no witness present, it did not suffice to receive
the public recognition of the experts of the world. The present China
Incident, as it were, is like a regular Sumo tournament at the Eko-in [in
Tokyo], and Japan is on top of the banzuke [the Sumo program, arran-
ged in order of the competitors’ hierarchy]. And Japan is not on one of
those still lowly positions on the left, in fact, Japan is the Champion of
-
the East [Higashi no Ozeki].59
However, despite the gratifying feeling of seeing Japan in such exalted posi-
tion, it must be said that the Boxer expedition was not popular for long, and
by the end of July 1900 (before the allied troops reached Beijing), the foreign
correspondent of the North-China Herald in Tokyo registered a significant
drop in popularity:
It must now be confessed that Japan never fought a more unpopular war
than she is fighting at the present moment with China or I suppose we
should call it a ‘military expedition.’ The initial excitement has died
away. The newspapers do their best to whip up the people a little, but
without the slightest success, for the people refuse to be interested in the
struggle.60
The foreign correspondent explained that the cause of this was the confusing
situation of not fighting a war, but nonetheless being at arms. Moreover, the
fighting proved to be far less glamorous than during the Sino Japanese War,
and took too long, so that the public soon became bored. Taoka Reiun’s
explanation (apart from the gruesome censorship) as to why he and many
other special correspondents left Tianjin so soon points in this direction:
Moreover, the bandits [zoku] fought with a vengeance and it did not look
like Tianijn would be taken easily. And my knapsack was too poor to pro-
vide for many days or months. Our expectations had been that the allied
army with irresistible force [hachiku no ikioi] would push towards Beijing
in one go and would effect a treaty at the enemy’s gates [jo-ka no mei].
More than half of our group started out for home. I, too, joined them.61
Another reason why the Boxer expedition could hardly be seen as an unquali-
fied success was the fact that the Japanese government and the military
authorities might have tried too hard to impress the Western public and,
involuntarily, exposed Japan to a mixture of sympathy, derision and outright
144 The Boxer Incident and beyond
racist condescension of the blandest sort. Thus the British-owned North-
China Herald commented on Japan’s motives in July 1900 as follows:
One would imagine from this that the Japanese are morbidly anxious for
praise. At present they are, but it is not a normal occasion, and con-
sidering the overwhelming importance to the Japanese of their creating a
good impression on the present occasion one can hardly blame them. It
may be said, indeed, without exaggeration, that on the conduct of her
officers and men in the present war depends the whole future of Japan.
If the British Tommy takes to the Japanese Tommy as he takes to the
Gurkha, all will be well; but there is just the possibility that he may conceive
as rooted a dislike for him as the white labourer in British Columbia and
Seattle does for the Japanese coolie, who is, after all, about the same
status as the Japanese soldier. In that case Japan’s energies would be for
ever circumscribed within her five hundred isles.65
The Japanese public was, of course, not wholly ignorant of such con-
descending sentiments on the part of the Western powers. One incident in
particular helped to cool its enthusiasm for the idealistic objectives of the
Boxer expedition: this was the attitude of the British government towards Japa-
nese participation. It should be remembered that the Japanese public was not
informed of the initial offer of the British government that Britain would
defray a part of the costs. However, at the beginning of August, the Kokumin
shinbun printed a news item distributed by Reuters, that the British Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, had declared in the House
of Commons that, with regard to Japan’s dispatch of troops, Britain had no
financial obligations toward Japan whatsoever, because Japan had not sent
enough troops, and not soon enough anyway.66
The Boxer Incident and beyond 145
To the Japanese public, this was insult heaped upon injury: firstly, that the
British, who had begged Japan to help out, now declared the Japanese per-
formance to be poor; but even more so, that the British government had
even considered paying for Japan’s services at all. This let Britain’s request
suddenly appear in a different light, turning the invitation to the club of
civilized nations into Japan’s employment as policemen in the service of Her
Majesty. Thus a major German newspaper (which apparently thought that
Britain still would meet its financial obligations) gleefully remarked at the
faux pas:
London could have known that the Japanese are a people much too
proud to take cash money from the British for an enterprise which they
want to be understood as being undertaken for the sake of civilization
and humanity. London naturally believes that this offer was an act of
generosity and magnanimity and is very surprised at the sensitivity of
the Japanese. In Japan, people now will probably develop a better
understanding of the expedition [the Boer War] which, under the mask
of a higher civilization, has been undertaken to capture the goldmines in
South Africa. Despite all the sweet words which the British press lavi-
shes on the Japanese, the British still seem intent to treat the Japanese on
the same level as the Chinese, otherwise they would not have taken the
same liberty towards the Mikado as towards the Vice-Roy of Nanjing,
who is said to be supported now by British money.67
If, with regards to the courage of the troops, the Western people are seen
to be fearful and weak, this too, might not be an apt criticism. Because
they consider it civilized to love their life and believe that their own life
is so many times more valuable than the life of the Chinese. In this
point, I must call on the recollection of the Japanese people, namely,
that when Western people conquer an uncivilized population [mikai
jinmin], they have as a principle the maxim ‘In fighting the natives, make
146 The Boxer Incident and beyond
natives the vanguard!’ [Dojin o utsu ni wa dojin o senpo- seyo] Like pre-
sently the French in their conquest of West Africa invariably use Alger-
ian soldiers, and the Russians in their conquest of Central Asia use
Cossacks, all follow the same principle. This time, if the Western powers
eagerly encourage the Japanese soldiers and want to make them conquer
North China, do they treat the Japanese soldiers not like the Cossack,
the Algerian soldier, or the Indian soldier? It is just the same sort of
using natives against natives. Is it after all such a case? The European
and American troops in the area of Tianjin always leave the dangerous
parts to the Japanese soldiers and would rather not advance fiercely, and
this makes the Asian people [To-jin], especially the Japanese reach the
conclusion that they lack in courage. But one certainly cannot say that
this is their characteristic nature. They all secretly say among them-
selves: ‘Our life is not that cheap; fighting with the Chinese and trading
their lives for it is the job of a people close to the Chinese.’70
Katsunan concluded that the Western powers sent Japan ahead, but would
reap the benefits afterward. Thus the Japanese should not pride themselves
vainly in their seemingly superior courage and discipline. Moreover, in two
consecutive articles at around the same time, Katsunan began to re-emphasize
the anti-Christian aspect of the conflict,71 thus laying the argumentative ground
for demanding Japan should pull out of the expedition.
However, it should be cautioned that there was also a much simpler
reason for the drop in popularity and the shift of the public’s attention away
from the Boxer expedition, which was that it was soon enticed by the rising
confrontation with Russia over Manchuria and Korea. Whereas anti-Russian
sentiment had been latent in the war reports of the Boxer expedition, these
broke out in August and September 1900 endemically, and continued (with
varying intensity) until the beginning of war in 1904. It is no coincidence that
Kuga Katsunan, who so vociferously voted for pulling out of the Boxer expedi-
tion, at the same time became one of the chief spokesmen of the anti-Russian
strong foreign policy movement.
We imagine that by this time every subject of His Most August Majesty
the Emperor who can read and think is filled with the sensation of one
who has suddenly awakened from dreams of youthful ambitions and vague
aspirations to the consciousness of the fact that he has become a grown-
up person of high position, of great reputation, and with a consequential
burden of onerous responsibilities.85
Although The Japan Times expressed concern that the recent successes in the
Sino Japanese War and the Boxer expedition let some people harbor ‘neb-
ulous ambitions’ which were undesirable, it allowed no doubt that this alliance
with the foremost nation of the world signaled to all Japan’s coming of age.
Not surprisingly, the same event was experienced in the opposite way in
China.86 The principal reaction among officials and intellectuals was shame
that China was so utterly powerless to protect itself and had to rely itself on
the powers of others, whose motives were dubious at best, and who placed
China on the same level as Korea.87 A Chinese newspaper, the Jingzhong Ribao
(The Alarm Bell), illustrated China’s situation quite poignantly. A caricature
shows the towering figures of Britannia and Amaterasu both benevolently
looking down on their two little protégés China and Korea, drawn as small
children.88 Whereas the Anglo Japanese Alliance was felt to make Japan a
‘grown-up person,’ it degraded China to the stage of infancy.
The final stage of Russo Japanese confrontation is quickly told: under
pressure of the Anglo Japanese alliance, Russia at first promised China a
scaled withdrawal of its troops, but failed to continue as promised after the
first partial withdrawal.89 The Japanese government tried to reach a solution
by negotiations with Russia, resuming the old idea of exchanging Manchuria
for Korea. The Russian leadership, however, saw no necessity of a trade-off
and insisted on maintaining its position in Korea as well. Finally, in December
1903, after a series of Imperial conferences and a fruitless exchange of dip-
lomatic notes, the Japanese leadership decided to discontinue negotiations
and prepare for war, Ito- and Yamagata with more reluctance than the
younger generation which had considered a final decisive confrontation with
Russia as inevitable from early on. Japan initiated military action on 8
February 1904 and officially declared war on Russia two days later. During
the preparations and throughout the war, Japan presented itself toward the
national and global public as the disinterested champion of Chinese and
Korean integrity and independence.
The Boxer Incident and beyond 149
Although the parties fought about a part of Chinese sovereign territory;
Japan fought ostensibly in order to retrieve Manchuria from Russian clasps
only to return it to China; and the actual fighting would predictably take
place on Chinese soil, the Qing court was not consulted on the issue, except
for the recommendation that it should declare itself neutral.90 This advice
was pressed upon China not only by Japan, but also by Britain and the
United States. The general fear was that China’s participation would trigger
a chain reaction, through which France would accede to the war due to the
Franco-Russian alliance, which in turn would require Britain to join, and so
on. On the Japanese side, the fear was that, apart from other complications,
China’s participation would unnecessarily nurture the rumors of a Yellow
Peril, which the Russian side was anyway busy rekindling in the accom-
panying propaganda war.91 Moreover, in an official statement, the Japanese
government recommended China’s neutrality because of its precarious finan-
cial and domestic situation, as China’s participation not only might lead to
unforeseeable consequences, but also would be to the detriment of China’s
commerce and finances, which in turn might trigger another domestic
uprising.92
The Qing court formally declared neutrality on 12/13 February 1904. In
its declaration, it made it clear that Manchuria was part of Chinese sover-
eign territory although, given the actual situation, it had to concede that
enforcement of the rules of neutrality there would be impossible.93 The Chi-
nese leadership was under no illusion about the disinterestedness of the
fighting parties, and was certain that, either way, China would lose some-
thing. However, although it was unwise to alienate Russia altogether, the
majority seemed to be inclined to favor Japan, all the more so since the
course of the war proved favorable for Japan. This was also the tendency of
most Chinese observers, who, however, voiced their shame and (often poli-
tically motivated) fury that the Qing court was unable to, or too inept to,
defend China on its own, and who gloomily predicted that Manchuria was
but the writing on the wall.94
The strong foreign policy movement in Japan, which had rallied and lob-
bied with varying intensity for war with Russia since 1900, and the Japanese
newspapers, which one by one had fallen in line with the pro-war advocates,
rejoiced when Japan finally declared war.95 They, too, hailed the war in
terms of protecting China’s (and Korea’s) integrity and independence, which
had been the war cry all along. However, when war began the Japanese
attitude towards China and the Chinese government showed, among already
familiar or predictable elements, an interesting variation on the theme of
Sino Japanese friendship.
Among the more familiar ingredients of war sentiments was mockery of
China’s weakness. Thus the To-kyõ Asahi shinbun derided the very thought
that China should even consider joining the war. However, even if so, this
would not activate the Franco-Russian alliance, as China was not a ‘power’
in the sense of the alliance any more.96 During the war, China was mocked
150 The Boxer Incident and beyond
for not being able to enforce neutrality in its own country, let alone protect
its citizens in Manchuria, submitting readily to the threats and extortion of
Russia: the Qing court probably did not even understand the rules of neu-
trality, which would enable it to call in another neutral country for the pro-
tection of neutrality if China was unable to fulfill the duties of a neutral
country in the first place.97
Moreover, it is conspicuous that the case of China now was often dis-
cussed alongside Korea without any distinctions, thus confirming the Chi-
nese dread that China indeed had sunk to the level of its former vassal.98
Finally, we can observe the usual attempts to dissociate Japan from China
and Korea in the eyes of the West, lest there might be any misunderstandings
as to Japan’s place in the world. The Nippon, for example, argued against
rumors of the ‘yellow peril’ in Europe that this narrative had lost all foun-
dation considering Japan’s many international successes in the past ten years.
In fact, the ‘yellow peril’ theory had evolved, and today was no longer about
the fundamental differences of race, religion or civilization, but was about
national morality.99 Finally, the yellow peril theory in its old form supposed
that Japan would lead China and Korea against the West, and would be able
to develop or ‘Japanize’ (Nihon-ka/Nihon to konka) those countries. How-
ever, considering the sorry state of China and Korea at the time, and their
fundamental differences anyway, this was rather unlikely.100 Such a statement
was, of course, contrary to all that the Nippon (and the Japanese public since
1898) had previously said, but should be taken for what it was a rather
specious argument in wartime to bolster Japan’s reputation in the West, not
a fundamental statement on Sino Japanese relations.
The new aspect of the Japanese attitude towards China was hurt pride and
vindictive anger that the Chinese government would not show itself loyal to
its friend Japan, but would even turn against its mentor and collude with
Russia. The Nippon, for example, from early on in the war, observed that
China had difficulties in enforcing strict neutrality, especially with respect to
the prohibition of contraband items.101 In fact China did have these pro-
blems, as it was too weak to enforce order, and Japan and Russia both took
advantage of it. Thus the Qing court was under pressure, not only from the
fighting parties, but also from European countries, which wanted to carry on
trade in Chinese ports as usual.102 However, the Nippon invariably saw Japan
as the loser of these infringements, and attributed them not only to the weak-
ness, but eventually to the malevolence of the Chinese leaders who wished
Japan ill, despite the fact that Japan was sacrificing its money and blood to
retrieve Manchuria for them. As we have seen, this was quite contrary to the
real situation among the Chinese leadership, and indicates the level of mis-
trust and insecurity that still existed on the Japanese side, despite professions
of friendship.
The government and the people of our country since long have wished
to see the Qing court as the protector of the Chinese people and to
The Boxer Incident and beyond 151
conduct good-neighborly relations with it. And yet, the Qing court still
pursues its highhanded ways, looks down upon us as a small insignif-
icant country and in conspiring with the Russian court does not mind to
upset peace and stability in East Asia.103
In the following, the Nippon portrayed the Qing court (or alternatively, the
‘Manchurian court’) as a bunch of oriental despots who did not care about
the Chinese people and merely tried to preserve the power of the Manchur-
ian rulers. In this, they were quite similar to the autocratic court of Russia,
the similarities to which the Nippon did not hesitate to support with a wild
theory on the common ethnic ancestry of both courts.104 Thus the Nippon
reached the verdict: ‘In the Qing court today there are truly no decent
people’ (Shin-tei konnichi jitsu ni hito nashi).105 However, at the same time,
the Nippon repeatedly stressed that this did not apply to the Chinese people,
as the Qing court did not represent its subjects (Shina-jin no daihyo- ni arazu)
and even cited the Chinese press for pro-Japanese positions among the Chi-
nese people.106 Thus the idea of friendship on the people’s level was kept up.
Another source of irritation was China’s alleged bid for participation in
the Portsmouth negotiations. China did consider asking to be represented,
but eventually did not push the issue.107 However, the Japanese press chafed
at the sheer ingratitude of even trying to participate, relating rumors that the
Qing court already had made secret agreements with Russia. The Kokumin
shinbun, for example, protested against China’s participation, since it had
declared its neutrality and consequently should stick to it.108 Moreover, if
China now entered the talks and the latter failed, China would become
involved in the embroglio, with the consequences described above. However,
more gravely than that weighed the sheer ingratitude of it:
For the sake of China, we have given our best in the name of good-
neighborly relations. The whole world knows it, and no Chinese person
who feels so much as a spark of love for his own country will refuse to
be moved by the supreme morality of our empire. From the start, there
have been merely two ways for China to conduct herself: either rely on
our empire and maintain her independence, or, if not, abandon herself to
ruin and destruction, break-up and disintegration. There is no other
choice.
[ … ] And yet, at this juncture, this China now plans to participate in
the Russo Japanese peace talks, now notifies the powers that it will
submit herself to the solution of the Manchurian question which the two
powers Russia and Japan have agreed upon. What is the meaning of
such untoward boldness? No doubt this is the height of not knowing
one’s proper station.109
If the [Qing] court does not rashly provoke a confrontation, tries to live
in harmony with the other countries as much as possible and devotes
itself to the improvement of its domestic affairs, then things on the
whole will work out, and it will surely not meet the misfortune of a
revolution.116
Conclusion
In the decade between 1895 and 1904, relations between China and Japan and
the international status of the two countries underwent a fundamental change
with lasting consequences especially for the mutual perspective of those
countries, repercussions of which can be traced through the history of modern
Sino Japanese relations up to the present. This book examines the shifting
attitude of the Japanese public toward China in the years between 1895 and
1904 through comments in major periodicals on important China-related
events. The results of this study can be summarized as follows:
China’s role in the Japanese discourse on politics in the decade between
1895 and 1904 underwent a fundamental transformation. The complex pro-
cess reflected not only a pivotal shift in the underlying power relations
between the two nations, but also Japan’s steady rise as a ‘civilized’ nation
among the Western powers and the domestic turmoil which adaptation to
this new role entailed.
During the early Meiji period, Japan challenged China as the direct poli-
tical competitor in East Asia. Despite the fact that Chinese culture maintained
a high status as classical education in Meiji society, the political China
assumed the role of Japan’s ideological adversary, echoing Western clichés of
‘oriental’ stagnancy and degeneration. At the same time, Japanese attitudes
betrayed a profound sense of insecurity and loathing of condescension from
both sides, China and the West. The Sino Japanese War 1894 95 led to the
most fateful and lasting power shift in the history of modern Sino Japanese
relations. However, for all the satisfaction and triumph that this afforded, a
feeling of unease remained that China, at some point in time, might regain
its strength. Moreover, the war inadvertently brought on the full globaliza-
tion of East Asia. The Tripartite Intervention, although a bitter shock to the
Japanese public, was understood in these terms and prompted the Japanese
government to initiate an ambitious armament-expansion program, which
enforced a withdrawal from international politics and wrought havoc on
domestic politics, finances and the economy. The expansion of the Western
powers during the Far Eastern Crisis 1897 98 into China led to a gradual
Sino Japanese rapprochement, albeit on a merely informal level, as the
Japanese government tried to calm Western racialist fears or rumors of a
154 Conclusion
Sino Japanese alliance. The Japanese public rejected the idea of a racially or
culturally motivated solidarity with China, but by the end of 1898 generally
advocated Japan’s responsibility for the ‘protection of China’ (Shina hozen).
Advocates of a strong foreign policy attacked the ‘weak-kneed’ stance of the
government and demanded that Japan protest against Germany’s and Rus-
sia’s actions in China. Moreover, commentators across political divisions
routinely called for reforms in China, and argued that Japan had a special
responsibility to help China reform, even if that meant pressuring the Chi-
nese government by threats of force. However, the cool reactions to the
Hundred Days Reform in China in 1898 show that too drastic (and too
independent) a reform was not welcome in Japan, either. The general opi-
nion was that China could not, and should not, progress too fast, which may
have been motivated partly by fear that China might become a competitor
again. It is telling that the most marked professions of friendship for China,
even among the formerly neutral press, came forth only after the Hundred
Days Reform had failed. However, the unwillingness to acknowledge real
progress in China may have had its cause also in the leaden Meiji interwar
years, which were pervaded by a sense of political and social stagnation. By
late 1898, continued domestic unrest in China led to the general acceptance
across political boundaries of Japan’s joint responsibility with the Western
powers to ‘protect China’s integrity and stability’ by financial aid and even
domestic intervention. Consequently, the Japanese public readily supported
the Boxer expedition in 1900 as a mission of ‘civilization.’ For the same
reason, it rejected viewing the conflict as a war, although it very much looked
like one. Moreover, despite general insistence that the expedition was on China’s
behalf, the incident visibly demonstrates China’s gradual effacement from poli-
tical discourse. The ‘war reports’ from the Boxer expedition barely acknowl-
edge China’s role, and focus instead on Japan’s competition with the Western
powers for distinction as a courageous and law-abiding nation, even more
civilized than some European powers, although this sense of competition
was hardly reciprocated. Moreover, the war reports hint at intensifying ten-
sions with Russia, and the Japanese public, which gradually lost interest in
the rather unglamorous Boxer expedition, soon turned its attention toward
the more exciting conflict with Russia over Korea and Manchuria instead.
Thus Russia eventually replaced China as the new polarizing power in Meiji
political discourse. In the Russo Japanese War, Japanese accusations of
Chinese ingratitude despite Japan’s sacrifices, especially the allegation that
the Qing court took Russia’s side in the war and would even dare to consider
joining the Portsmouth peace talks, show the reverse side of Japan’s ‘friend-
ship’ towards China and completed the psychological framework within
which Sino Japanese relations eventually worked.
Considering the problem that initially motivated this study the con-
tentious nature of Sino Japanese relations after the Sino Japanese War
how does the above development reflect on the issue? To begin with the more
transparent aspect, it is true that one could describe Sino Japanese relations
Conclusion 155
as exceptionally ‘harmonious’ (see the introduction) in the sense that, apart
from Japan’s participation in the Boxer expedition and war in Manchuria,
the Japanese government refrained from the use of force against China and,
considering what came after the fall of the Qing dynasty, maintained a
rather moderate policy towards its former enemy. The Japanese government
did not join the powers in the scramble for concessions in 1898, and even
though Japan did acquire the Russian positions in Port Arthur, Dalian and
South Manchuria, the details were at least negotiated with some moderation
during the Beijing talks, a concession which, if Komura had acted fully in
the spirit of the Western powers, he would probably not have bothered to
make.1 Thus, if William Langer criticizes Europe’s treatment of China in the
whole period from 1895 to 1900 as being ‘devoid of all consideration and of
all understanding’, the dominant note being always ‘that force is the father
of peace and that the only method of treating successfully with China is the
method of the mailed fist,’2 this does not hold true for Japan’s China policy
in the same period. On the contrary, the foreign policy of the late Meiji
period has been often commended for its relative moderation and realism,
both of which, however, got lost somewhere in the following generations.3
Thus there may have been powerful figures, especially in the army, who, like
so many European leaders in the late 1890s, believed that China’s break-up
was imminent and that Japan should have a share in the following distribu-
tion.4 However, most civilian leaders, such as Ito- Hirobumi, were, as Peter
Duus calls them, ‘cautious imperialists,’ who were confident that China
could (and should) remain intact and who acted accordingly.5
Of course, one could argue, as the opposition always did at the time, that
Japan’s cautiousness was merely a sign of weakness. Marius B. Jansen, too,
observed that ‘Meiji leaders [ … ] were often moderate not by choice, but
because of Japan’s international handicaps,’ the biggest of which certainly
was that, until 1904, Japan simply lacked real capacity for formal imperial-
ism.6 However, this only states the obvious, and does not detract from the
merit of those leaders who did realistically assess Japan’s strength and did
not overreach themselves, as did Japanese leaders of the following genera-
tions, who thereby laid the foundation for the future destabilization of the
continent.
Japan’s informal cooperation with China in the years following the Sino
Japanese War gives ample proof of this policy. The cooperation might have
laid the groundwork for Japan’s ‘informal empire’ in China and might none-
theless have been, for all its informality, imperialism, but in the period under
discussion this at least was done with the collaboration of those Chinese poli-
ticians, students and revolutionaries who hoped to profit from Japan, each in
their own way.
The Japanese public had an attitude to match this policy, despite often
vehement protests to the contrary. Thus, to begin with another observation
of the more obvious, the Sino Japanese War did not have the effect of turn-
ing respect into contempt and undermining ‘a millennium of harmonious
156 Conclusion
Sino Japanese relations.’7 Apart from the fact that such a millennium prob-
ably never existed and that Chinese classical culture enjoyed undiminished
respect with those who were still conversant in it, the war alone would not
have changed the Japanese public attitude for good, if it were not for the
subsequent contribution of the Western powers and the failure of the Hun-
dred Days Reform to expose China’s weakness and helplessness for all to see.
Moreover, these events paradoxically did not encourage the Japanese public
to continue its prewar harangue against China as the ‘common enemy’ of
civilization, but led to a rapprochement between China and Japan which, in
the Japanese public view, was rationalized as the revival of the Sino Japa-
nese friendship.
This friendship was, of course, of a rather special kind. Firstly, the fact
that these professions of friendship generally came forth only after China’s
defeat and additional proof of the irreversibility of the power shift indicates that
the friendship was built on China’s subordination and would last only as long
as China remained in this position. Thus the relationship was never meant to
be a bond of equals. This is also apparent in the quite different treatment which
Chinese labor immigrants received in Japan, as they remained possibly danger-
ous to the Japanese labor society, whereas the Chinese officials and students,
who were wooed and lured to Japan, were deemed potentially useful.
Moreover, if one part of the Sino Japanese friendship was bolstered on a
feeling of superior strength, the slogan of ‘protecting China’s integrity and
stability’ (Shina hozen), which became the generally accepted view by the end
of 1898, was rather predicated on the awareness of Japan’s weak position
among the other powers. Thus the slogan, which essentially called for the
protection of the territorial status quo in China, was a direct reaction to the
scramble for concessions that, if it had continued, would have led to a clos-
ing off of spheres and excluded Japan from the ‘Great Game.’ In that sense,
the Japanese intention of keeping the Door open very much resembled the
China policy of the Western powers before the 1890s, and anticipated the
new consent among the powers as a consequence of the Boxer expedition
and the Russo Japanese War.8 The fact that the Japanese public arrived at
this conclusion already in 1898, earlier than others, might be owed to Japan’s
relative weak position at the time.
In this situation, the Japanese professions of friendship towards China
were, of course, calculated to facilitate Japan’s informal expansion in China
through creating a bond of mutual exploitation with their Chinese partners.9
The invocation of a common bond of race and culture (do-bun do-shu) and of
the strategic significance of their cooperation (the ‘lips and teeth’), inciden-
tally, fall into the same category, as such assurances were quickly discarded
when they threatened to hurt Japan’s interests, especially its reputation
among the Western powers.
The admixture of overbearing friendliness, cautiousness and calculation is
well demonstrated in a statement by the ‘China expert’ Shiga Sukegoro-,
although few of his contemporaries would have dared to put it so bluntly:
Conclusion 157
For the sake of China and the whole of Asia it is natural to hope that
our government, our ministers abroad and the people will offer help and
advice as much as they can, and that this will yield good results. How-
ever, we should also be careful to stay within certain limits, lest our help
and advice attracts too much attention or is too intrusive. This is abso-
lutely not weakness or indecision. To avoid the form while grasping the
substance, isn’t that the best way to achieve the ultimate goal? Especially
now that the hunting for concessions is so in vogue it is perfectly clear
that our policy must not be too rash or too obvious. For now, we should
keep our eyes fixed on the future and devise a plan of how to ultimately
secure victory. Otherwise, we will come upon many obstacles or even fail
with our long-term policy altogether.
An individual, when dealing with the world, needs both boldness and
circumspection. The same applies for a country perched between the
great powers. [ … ]10
One can criticize, and perhaps with reason, that in annexing a part of
Chinese territory, Japan loses the advantages of her insular position. As
a result of the conquest, we shall see Japan obliged to strengthen her
means of defense considerably more and to keep part of the Army on
war footing for a long time. On the other hand, she assures thereby the
independence [of Korea] or rather her ‘protectorate’ over Korea, making
a land attack against the peninsula extremely difficult.28
Introduction
1 Immanuel Hsu, ‘Late Ch’ing foreign relations, 1866 1905,’ in John K. Fairbank
and Kwang Ching Liu (eds), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 2: Late
Ch’ing, 1800 1911, Part 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 129;
Jürgen Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft: vom 18 Jahrhundert bis in
unsere Zeit (China and the international society: from the eighteenth century to
the present), Munich: C. H. Beck, 1989, p. 202.
2 A. Iriye, ‘Japan’s drive to great power status’ in: Jansen, Marius B. (ed.) Cam
bridge History of Japan, Vol. 5: The Nineteenth Century, Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 777.
3 Gerrit W. Gong, The Standard of ‘Civilization’ in International Society, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1984, p. 30.
4 William L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 2nd edn, New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1965, pp. 167, 677.
5 Archibald Rosebery as quoted by Valentine Chirol, ‘The Far Eastern Question,’
part 1, The Times, 24 September 1895, p. 3.
6 Donald Keene, ‘The Sino Japanese War of 1894 95 and its Cultural Effects in
Japan,’ in Donald Shively (ed.), Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 126; S. C. M. Paine, The Sino
Japanese War of 1894 1895: Perceptions, Power and Primacy, Cambridge: Cam
bridge University Press, 2003, pp. 4, 298 99.
7 See Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898 1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and
Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, pp. xvi xviii, 5 6; for
other positive assessments (albeit with many more reservations) see Marius B.
Jansen, The Japanese and Sun Yat Sen, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1967, pp. 218 20; Saneto Keishu, Nitchu hi yuko no rekishi (The history of
Sino Japanese unfriendly relations), Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1973, p. 19.
8 On the various aspects of Sino Japanese interactions see Jansen, Japanese and
Sun Yat Sen; Peter Duus et al. (eds), The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895
1937, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989; Paula Harrell, Sowing the
Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895 1905, Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 1992; Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898 1912; Zhai
Xin, Toa dobunkai to Chugoku: kindai Nihon ni okeru taigai rinen to sono jissen (The
Toa dobun kai and China: the ideology and practice of foreign relations in modern
Japan), Tokyo: Keio gijuku daigaku shuppan kai, 2001; Li Tingjiang, Nihon
zaikai to kindai Chugoku: Shingai kakumei o chushin ni (The Japanese business
world and modern China around the time of the Chinese Revolution 1911), 2nd
edn, Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 2003; Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), Late Qing China
and Meiji Japan: Political and Cultural Aspects, Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2004.
164 Notes
9 On Japanese Sinology and ‘Oriental history,’ see Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and
Sinology: The Case of Naito Konan (1866 1934), Cambridge, MA: Council on
East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984; Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient:
Rendering Pasts into History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1993.
10 On Chinese overseas students in Japan, see Harrell, Sowing the Seeds; F. Huang,
Chinese Students in Japan in the Late Ch’ing Period, translated by Katherine P. K.
Whitaker, Tokyo: Tokyo Press, 1982; Saneto Keishu, Chugoku jin Nihon ryugaku
shi zoho (A history of Chinese students in Japan, enlarged edn), Tokyo: Kuroshio
shuppan, 1970.
11 Akira Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992, p. 139.
12 On patriotism and the use of foreigners as ‘ideological mirror’ see Carol Gluck,
Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1985, pp. 127 38.
13 See Masuda Tomoko, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’ (The post 1895 management program),
in Inoue Matsusada et al. (eds), Nihon rekishi taikei (An outline of Japanese history),
Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppan sha, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 732.
14 On the ‘social problems,’ see Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, pp. 26 35.
15 Gong, Standard of ‘Civilization’, pp. 10, 30.
16 Gong, Standard of ‘Civilization’, pp. 48 51; R.J. Vincent, ‘Race in International
Relations,’ International Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Autumn 1982), pp. 661 66.
17 For the Korean case see Alexis Dudden, Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse
and Power, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005.
18 Gong, Standard of ‘Civilization, p. 39.
19 For a discussion of this problem in intellectual history in general, see Kano
Masanao, Shihon shugi keisei ki no chitsujo ishiki (System consciousness in the
formation period of capitalism), Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1969, pp. 16 23.
20 For more information on the (metropolitan) newspaper world and newspaper
readership in the 1890s, see Nishida Taketoshi, Meiji jidai no shinbun to zasshi
(Newspapers and magazines in the Meiji era), Tokyo: Shibundo, 1961, pp. 237 45;
James L. Huffman, Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan, Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1997, pp. 224 70; Yamamoto Taketoshi, Kindai Nihon
no shinbun no dokusha so (Newspaper readership in modern Japan), Tokyo: Hosei
daigaku shuppan kyoku, 1981, pp. 91 182; see also Sasaki Takashi, Media to
kenryoku (The media and power), Tokyo: Chuo koron shinsha, 1999.
21 F.G. Notehelfer, Kotoku Shusui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 44.
22 See ‘Jiji shinpo no jisatsu’ (The suicide of the Jiji shinpo), Tokyo nichinichi shinbun,
Nov. 16, 1898.
23 Thus it is claimed that Hayashi ‘was practically responsible during many years for
the attitude of the Jiji shinpo on foreign affairs,’ see Hayashi Tadasu, The Secret
Memoirs of Count Tadasu Hayashi. A. M. Pooley (ed.), London: Eveleigh Nash,
1915, p. 27 (introduction).
24 In 1895, a letter to the editor of the Kokumin shinbun complained about ‘the dis
like of the Jiji shinpo for China’ (Jiji shinpo no Shina kirai), see ‘San shinbun no
monokirai’ (The dislikes of three newspapers), Kokumin shinbun, July 25, 1895,
p. 2. For example, the Jiji shinpo in the same year quoted an article in the
Shanghai based newspaper Shenbao, which criticized the demeaning caricatures
of Chinese in the Jiji shinpo, see ‘Shina shinbun, Jiji shinpo no manga o tsuba su’
(A Chinese newspaper condemns the caricatures of the Jiji shinpo), Jiji shinpo, 8
March 1895, p. 2 [the short Shenbao article, dated 26 February 1898 (solar calendar)
is reprinted as kanbun text]. To illustrate the Chinese reaction graphically, the
recalcitrant Jiji shinpo added to the same text a no less demeaning caricature of
Notes 165
an enraged Chinese in a reading room, tearing and stamping on the pages of the
Jiji shinpo which, in turn, showed demeaning caricatures of (pig tailed) Chinese.
25 The newspaper Nippon sometimes gave its title in Roman letters as ‘NIPPON’,
thus, it was not read Nihon, as western literature often has it.
26 Tokutomi Soho, Soho jiden (The Autobiography of Tokutomi Soho), Tokyo:
Heibonsha, 1982, p. 179.
27 For a more detailed study of Kuga Katsunan’s positions, see Marutani Yoshinori,
Kuga Katsunan kenkyu (Studies on Kuga Katsunan), Tokyo: Keiso shobo, 1990;
Koyama Fumio, Kuga Katsunan: ‘Kokumin’ no soshutsu (Kuga Katsunan: creating
‘the nation’), Tokyo: Misuzu shobo, 1990.
28 In May 1898 the Japan Weekly Mail welcomed the sentencing of the editor and
printer of the newspaper in a libel suit; it was about time, it wrote, ‘to send to
their proper place, the convict’s cell, men so indifferent to every moral principle as
the conductors of the vile sheet’ (‘The Yorozu choho,’ Japan Weekly Mail, 14 May
1898, p. 497).
2 The Sino Japanese War, the Tripartite Intervention, and Japan’s ‘postwar management’
1 William L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 2nd edn, New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1965, p. 167.
174 Notes
2 For a more detailed study of developments up to the Japanese decision of war,
see Takahashi Hidenao, Nisshin senso e no michi (The road to the Sino Japanese
War), Tokyo: Tokyo sogensha, 1995. On the war and its impact on Western
perceptions, see S. C. M. Paine, The Sino Japanese War of 1894 1895: Percep
tions, Power and Primacy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. On the
immediate war experience of Japanese abroad and at home, see Stewart Lone,
Japan’s First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894 95,
Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994. On the Tripartite Intervention, see Frank W. Ikle,
‘The Triple Intervention: Japan’s Lesson in the Diplomacy of Imperialism’,
Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 22, No. 1 2 (1967), pp. 122 30; Ian Nish, The
Anglo Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894 1907,
2nd edn, London: Athlone Press, 1985, pp. 16 30; Urs Matthias Zachmann,
‘Imperialism in a Nutshell: Conflict and the ‘Concert of Powers’ in the Tripartite
Intervention, 1895’, Japanstudien, Vol. 17 (2005), pp. 57 82.
3 Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 114.
4 Mutsu Munemitsu, as cited by Samuel C. Chu, ‘China’s Attitudes toward Japan
at the Time of the Sino Japanese War’, in Akira Iriye (ed.), The Chinese and the
Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural Interaction, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1980, p. 83; see also Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 118.
5 ‘Sakunen no dekigoto’ (Last year’s events), Jiji shinpo, 1 January 1894, p. 2.
6 In contrast, the Sino Japanese War in the New Year’s issue of 1895 was, of
course, the event. Thus, whereas the 1894 New Year’s cartoon had shown the
rapid drop of stocks by depicting a falling bunch of turnips (kabu), the 1895
New Year’s issue showed the rapid decline in China’s luck by depicting a huge
balloon falling from the sky with desperate Chinese inside; see Huffman, James
L., Creating a Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan, Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1997, p. 213.
7 The Jiji shinpo announced the government’s decision on 9 June 1898 (p. 7: ‘Seifu
guntai o haken su’ The government dispatches troops).
8 The series started on 16 June 1894, p. 2 (‘Meiji 17 nen Keijo no ran’ the Seoul
riots of 1884).
9 Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 116.
10 See Shinobu Seizaburo (ed.), Nihon gaiko shi 1853 1972 (A history of Japanese
foreign policy, 1853 1972), Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1974, Vol. 1, pp. 161 62;
Takahashi, Nisshin senso, p. 313. For the immediate effects of the war on
domestic politics and the role of the emperor, see Lone, Japan’s First Modern
War, pp. 78 65.
11 See for example Kuga, ‘Tenshin joyaku o ikan’ (What about the Tianjin Treaty),
Nippon, 7 July 1894 (KKZ 4:542 43); on the suzerainty question as the central
issue, see also M. Mutsu, Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record of the Sino Japa
nese War, 1894 95, edited and translated by Gordon Mark Berger, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982, p. 77.
12 See Kuga, ‘Tenshin joyaku o ikan’, KKZ 4:542; Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 115.
13 Kuga, ‘Sensen no mikotonori wo yomu’ (On reading the Imperial Declation of
War), Nippon, 4 August 1894 (KKZ 4:568).
14 Kuga, ‘Sensen no mikotonori wo yomu’, KKZ 4:568.
15 The Japan Weekly Mail, 11 August 1894, in Uchimura, Kanzo, Uchimura Kanzo
zenshu (The collected works of Uchimura Kanzo), Suzuki, Toshiro et al. (eds),
Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1980 84, Vol. 3, pp. 38 48. The text was written originally
for the English speaking readership, since the British opinion at the beginning of
the war was very critical of Japan (see Mutsu, Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record,
p. 106). On the construction of the ‘just war’ argument, see also Ohama Tetsuya,
Shomin no mita Nisshin Nichiro senso (The people’s view of the Sino Japanese
and Russo Japanese War), Tokyo: Tosui shobo, 2003, pp. 19 46.
Notes 175
16 Most famous for this argument is Fukuzawa Yukichi’s ‘Nisshin senso wa bun’ya
no senso nari’ (The war between Japan and China is a war between civilization
and barbarism), Jiji shinpo, 29 July 1894 (FYZ 14:491 92); see also Mutsu,
Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record, pp. 27 28.
17 Kuga Katsunan, ‘Waga teikoku no tai Kan seisaku o bogai suru kuni wa kore
bunmei koku ni arazu’ (A country which obstructs our Korea policy is not a
civilized country’), Nippon, 29 July 1894 (KKZ 4:563).
18 Kano Masanao claims that this argument was applied already during the war
(Fukuzawa Yukichi, Tokyo: Century Books, 1967, p. 175). The argument is some
times attributed to Uchimura’s ‘Justification,’ but Uchimura does not use it there.
19 Takahashi, Nisshin senso, p. 517.
20 Hara Takeshi, ‘Gunji teki shiten kara mita Nisshin senso’ (The Sino Japanese
War from a military viewpoint), in Higashi Ajia kindai shi gakkai (ed.), Nisshin
senso to Higashi Ajia sekai no hen’yo (The first Sino Japanese War and the
transformation of East Asia), Tokyo: Yumani shobo, 1997, Vol. 2, pp. 93 95;
these and the following numbers are largely based on Vol. 1 of the Meiji nijushichi
hachi nen Nisshin sen shi (A history of the Sino Japanese War of 1894/5), Tokyo:
Tokyo insatsu, 1904; repr. Yumani shobo, 1998.
21 Mutsu, Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record, pp. 83, 106 12; see also Ohama,
Shomin no mita Nisshin Nichiro senso, pp. 47 48, on the mood of the first days
of the war.
22 Hara, ‘Gunji teki shiten kara mita Nisshin senso’, pp. 95, 97.
23 Ibid., p. 92.
24 Ibid., p. 97, citing also the numbers for the other battles. For allegations of
Japanese violations of the international law in the battle of Tianzhuangtai, see
Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 176.
25 See Fujimura, Nisshin senso, pp. 183 84.
26 Miyake Setsurei, Jiden (Autobiography), Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1982, p. 380. This is
a statement made in retrospect, but the phrase turns up frequently in contemporary
comments on the war as well. For a documentation of the war frenzy in popular
culture, see Donald Keene, ‘The Sino Japanese War of 1894 95 and Its Cultural
Effects in Japan’, in Donald Shively (ed.), Tradition and Modernization in Japanese
Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 121 75.
27 On the newspaper business during wartimes, see James L. Huffman, Creating a
Public: People and Press in Meiji Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1997, pp. 199 223.
28 See Keene, ‘The Sino Japanese War’, pp. 135 36.
29 For illustrations from Kobayashi Kiyochika’s notorious Nippon banzai! Hyaku
sen hyakusho (‘Hurray Japan! Every page/war a laughter’, 1895) depicting such
scenes, see Gunter Diesinger (ed.), Japanische Farbholzschnitte II: Kriegsbilder aus
der Meiji Zeit (Japanese colored woodblock prints II: war illustrations of the Meiji
period), Hamburg: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 1986, pp. 26, 43.
30 Mutsu, Kenkenroku: A Diplomatic Record, p. 110.
31 Such was the title of a famous war ditty by Yokoi Tadanao, see Keene, ‘Sino
Japanese War’, pp. 142 43.
32 See ‘Hi kowa’ (Against peace), Kokumin shinbun, 17 March 1895, p. 2; ‘Kowa
shi ni kan suru yoron’ (The public opinion on the peace mission), Kokumin
shinbun, 17 March 1895, p. 4; Fukuzawa Yukichi, ‘Heiwa no kikai imada juku
sezu’ (The time for peace has not come, yet), Jiji shinpo, 29 March 1895 (FYZ
15:112 15).
33 Albert d’Anethan, The d’Anethan Dispatches from Japan, 1894 1910, Georg
Alexander Lensen (ed.), Tallahassee, FL: Diplomatic Press, 1967, p. 45.
34 See, for example, Kuga, ‘Taishin saku’ (‘Our China policy’), Nippon, 24/25/26
September 1894 (KKZ 4:619 23); Fukuzawa, ‘Gaisen shimatsu ron’ (How to
176 Notes
deal with war’), Jiji shinpô, 1 7 February 1895 (KKZ 15:40 60), especially part 1,
‘Kano fukushu ryoku o gensai subeshi’ (We must reduce their powers to take
revenge).
35 Uchimura, ‘A Retrospect’, Yorozu choho, 14/15/16 December 1897, in Uchimura
Kanzo zenshu, Vol. 5, pp. 191 96, the quote on 193; see also Naito Konan,
‘Hisen ron’ (‘Against war’), Yorozu choho, 23 24 December 1898, in Naito
Konan zenshu (The Collected works of Naito Konan), Naito Kenkichi and Kanda
Kiichiro (eds), Tokyo: Chikuma shobo, 1969 76, Vol. 2, pp. 213 15. On this
article in the context of Naito’s position, see Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and
Sinology: the Case of Naito Konan (1866 1934), Cambridge, MA: Council on
East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984, pp. 70 71.
36 Kuga, ‘Taishin saku’, KKZ 4:622 23.
37 The Times, 23 April 1895 (GSN 2:621).
38 The imperial edict concerning the Intervention bears the date 10 May and was
published in the Official Gazette (Kanpo) on 11 May 1895. The Jiji shinpo pub
lished it in an extra edition on 13 May and the Peace Treaty on 14 May (p. 3).
The Tokyo nichinichi shinbun published the edict on 14 May; the Kokumin shin
bun also on 14 May alongside the Peace Treaty (p. 3). However, since the Japa
nese newspapers were connected to the international news pool, their editors had
known of the Intervention all along but had been forced to keep silent (see Paine,
Sino Japanese War, p. 289).
39 See Paine, Sino Japanese War, pp. 289 91; Huffman, Creating a Public, pp. 218 19.
40 See, for example, Ikle, ‘Triple Intervention’, pp. 122, 129 30.
41 Tokutomi Soho, Soho jiden (The Autobiography of Tokutomi Soho), Tokyo:
Heibonsha, 1982, p. 195.
42 The exchange began with Asahina Chisen’s ‘Iwayuru sekinin mondai’ (The so called
responsibility question), Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, 30 July 1895, to which Katsunan
replied with ‘Kino no Tokyo nichinichi shinbun’ (Yesterday’s Tokyo nichinichi
shinbun), 31 July 1895 (KKZ 4:159 61). The exchange lasted well into August
1895. On questioning the responsibility of the government and the ‘postwar
management,’ see Sakeda Masatoshi, Kindai Nihon ni okeru taigai ko undo no
kenkyu (Studies on the strong foreign policy movement in modern Japan),
Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppan kai, 1979, pp. 77 84.
43 See, for example, Ohama, who places the whole interwar chapter (Shomin no
mita Nisshin nichiro senso, pp. 65 100) under the heading of this motto.
44 Miyake, ‘Shotan gashin’, Nippon, 15 May 1895, p. 1 (part 1 of planned three
parts), 27 May 1895, p. 2 (part 2); between 16 and 26 May publication of the
Nippon was suspended. Ohama, for example, claims that Miyake had made the
slogan the ‘voice of the time’ (Shomin no mita Nisshin nichiro senso, pp. 79 80).
45 ‘Takigi ni ga shi, tan o namu’, Kokumin shinbun, 10 May 1895, p. 2.
46 Miyake, ‘Shotan gashin’, 27 May 1895.
47 Okuma Shigenobu, ‘Okuma haku no enzetsu’ (Count Okuma’s speech), Tokyo
nichinichi shinbun, 23 October 1898, p. 5.
48 ‘Senso no junbi’ (War preparations), Kokumin shinbun, 19 July 1895, p. 2.
49 The Ottoman empire was named ‘Sick Man of the East’ first by the Russian czar
Nicholas I in 1844. For the analogy, see also Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 18,
with further references.
50 ‘Shina to Toruko’ (China and Turkey), Kokumin shinbun, 14 February 1895, p. 2.
51 Ozaki Yukio, ‘Taishin seisaku’ (Our China policy), Taiyo, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1 Jan
uary 1895), pp. 42 44. In contrast, see Ozaki’s attitude towards China in 1884 as
described (albeit in retrospect) in The Autobiography of Ozaki Yukio: the Strug
gle for Constitutional Government in Japan, translated by Hara Fujiko, Prince
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 76 83. In 1884 Ozaki went to
Shanghai as a correspondent of the Yubin Hochi shinbun and came to advocate
Notes 177
war against China. This was in line with the generally aggressive attitude towards
China at the time (see Chapter 1).
52 ‘Shinkoku no kyu ni omomuku beshi’, Nippon, 23 June 1895, p. 1.
53 See ‘Zen sekai no shippai (kinji no gaiko shakai)’ (A failure of the whole world
the diplomatic community in recent times), Kokumin shinbun, 18 June 1895, p. 5;
the article enumerates the specific blunders of the various countries involved or
not involved in the Tripartite Intervention (Japan, China, the Tripartite powers
and Britain).
54 Miyake Setsurei, ‘Gaiko jutsu o Shina ni manabe’ (Learn the skills of diplomacy
from China), Nippon, 11 May 1895, p. 1. The rhetoric flourish is Miyake at his best.
55 Mahan, ‘A Twentieth Century Outlook’, Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Vol. 5,
No. 568 (September 1897), pp. 521 33. Mahan’s article is also discussed in the
context of other American opinions on the ‘competition of races’ by Akira Iriye,
Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897 1911, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 31 32.
56 Mahan, ‘Twentieth Century Outlook’, pp. 523, 525.
57 Fukuzawa Yukichi, ‘Kuron no toki ni arazu’ (It is not the time for idle talk), Jiji
shinpo, 14 April 1898 (FYZ 16:299). Fukuzawa reconfirmed his conviction in
‘Shina hei oi ni mochiu beshi’ (Chinese soldiers are exceedingly usable), Jiji
shinpo, 15 April 1898 (FYZ 16:301 3).
58 For details see Matsuoka Bunpei, ‘Reimei ki rodo kumiai undo no tokushitsu:
‘Rodo sekai’ to Chugoku zakkyo mondai’ (The characteristics of the early labor
movement: the magazine Rodo sekai and the Chinese mixed residence problem’),
Shisen 48 (1974), p. 18; Hara Takashi, Shin joyaku jisshi junbi (Preparing for the
implementation of the New Treaties), 2nd edn, Osaka: Osaka Mainichi shinbun sha,
1899, pp. 52 55.
59 Hara, Shin joyaku jisshi junbi, p. 56.
60 Tokutomi Soho, Shakai to jinbutsu (Society and People), Tokyo: Min’yusha,
1899, p. 85. Tokutomi identified as those qualities: absolute reliability in com
mercial transactions, resilience and perseverance in the face of adverse circum
stances and hostile environments, strong bonding power that allows them to
draw on existing networks wherever they go and, finally, the ability to make a
cool headed and well calculated decision even in critical situations. For other
explicit comparisons of Chinese with Jewish people at the time, see e.g. the
chapter ‘Yudaijin’ (Jews) in the essay collection Sanshi suimei (The Glory of
Nature), ed. Kuga Katsunan, Tokyo: Rikugun juken kogi roku henshu jo, 1897,
pp. 186 93, especially p. 192 (judging from the style, Miyake Setsurei is a likely
author); see also Yamagata Aritomo’s opinion paper quoted in Chapter 3.
61 Matsuoka, ‘Reimei ki rodo kumiai’, p. 26; N. Kamachi, ‘The Chinese in Meiji
Japan: Their Interactions with the Japanese before the Sino Japanese War’, in
Akira Iriye (ed.), The Chinese and the Japanese: Essays in Political and Cultural
Interaction, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980, p. 73.
62 Nakanishi Ushiro, ‘Nippon teikoku no ninmu’ (The mission of the Japanese
Empire), Taiyo, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1 January 1895), p. 48; according to the editor’s
note Nakanishi was born 1861 in Kumamoto, entered the Doshisha in 1884 to
study English, later made a tour to the USA, and on his return became the dean
of the ‘bungaku ryo’ of the Honpa honganji in Kyoto, on the side editing the
monthly Keisei hakugi.
63 ‘Kokuun no dai tenkai’, Kokumin shinbun, 31 March 1895, p. 2; for Tokutomi
Soho’s interpretation of the war in this spirit see Pyle, New Generation, pp. 175,
177; Huffman, Creating a Public, p. 212.
64 Taoka Reiun, ‘Heisenchu no Tenshin’ (Tianjin under fire), Kyushu nippo, 29 July
1900, in Taoka Reiun zenshu (Collected Works of Taoka Reiun), Nishida
Masaru (ed.), Tokyo: Hosei daigaku shuppan kyoku, 1969 87, Vol. 5, pp. 68 69.
178 Notes
65 The USA originally planned to construct a transisthmian canal through Nicar
agua, but was blocked by the Nicaraguan president José Santos Zelaya (in office
1893 1909). When rumors became known that Zelaya would grant building
rights to Japanese entrepreneurs, the USA in 1909 supported a (successful) revolt
against the Zelaya government. Nevertheless, the canal was eventually built in
Panama.
66 Konoe Asumaro, ‘Kaikoku no bokko ni kan suru yomu’ (Urgent tasks cocerning
Japan’s rise as a maritime nation), Shinsei No. 47 (5 January 1895), p. 13.
67 When Kuga Katsunan speaks of ‘intervention into domestic politics,’ this
regularly refers to the Western powers’ stance during the treaty revision pro
cess, see his ‘Kokunai kansho ron’ (On domestic intervention), Nippon, 24 August
5 September 1889 (KKZ 2:197 221).
68 ‘Kokusai kansho’ (International intervention), Nippon, 4 June 1895 (KKZ
5:104 5).
69 ‘Domei’ (Alliances), Kokumin shinbun, 29 May 1895, p. 2.
70 ‘Domei ron’ (On Alliances), part 1, Tokyo Asahi shinbun, 5 August 1896, p. 1.
71 See e.g. ‘Nichiei domei no setsu ni tsuite’ (About the Anglo Japanese alliance
theory), Jiji shinpo, 1 August 1897 (FYZ 16:63 65); this was one of Fukuzawa’s
‘pet opinions.’
72 ‘Nichei domei okonawaru beki ka’ (Is an Anglo Japanese alliance feasible?),
Kokumin shinbun, 12 July 1895, p. 2. The name of the British is given as
Frederick Greenwood.
73 On the Anglo Japanese rapprochement after the Tripartite Intervention in general,
see Nish, Anglo Japanese Alliance, pp. 35 41.
74 Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 297.
75 Mutsu Munemitsu wryly comments on this sudden change of sentiments in
Kenkekroku: A Diplomatic Record, pp. 106 7; for a rather curious example of
pro Japanese war enthusiasm in Europe, see Rolf Harald Wippich (ed.), ‘Haut
sie, dass die Lappen fliegen!’: Briefe von Deutschen an das japanische Kriegsmi
nisterium während des chinesisch japanischen Krieges 1894/95 (‘Beat them to
pulp!’: German letters to the Japanese War Ministry during the Sino Japanese
War, 1894/95), Tokyo: OAG Gesellschaft für Natur und Völkerkunde Ostasiens
Tokyo, 1997.
76 ‘The Other Side of the Question’, The North China Herald, 7 December 1894
(GSN 2:568).
77 Mahan, ‘A Twentieth Century Outlook’, p. 525.
78 The phrase became (and stayed) fashionable since the discussion of Britain’s
accession or non accession to the Tripartite Intervention in the European public.
On the political career of this phrase, see Heinz Gollwitzer, Die Gelbe Gefahr:
Geschichte eines Schlagwortes. Studien zum imperialistischen Denken (The Yellow
Danger: the history of a catchphrase. Studies on imperial thought), Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1961; Ute Mehnert, Deutschland, Amerika und die
‘Gelbe Gefahr’: zur Karriere eines Schlagwortes in der Großen Politik, 1905 1917
(Germany, America and the,Yellow Peril’: the career of a catchphrase in inter
national politics, 1905 17), Stuttgart: Frany Steiner Verlag, 1995.
79 This Hungarian general of uncertain name is quoted in the previous news item
on the same page with a calculation on the costs of a future great war in Europe
(‘Senso no daika’): in the past 25 years, the European countries because of Bis
marck’s politics had spent 125 billion francs on armament expansion; one month
of intensive fighting would cost five billion francs; since six months would produce
one million dead, ergo killing one person would cost 155,000 francs.
80 ‘Koshoku jinshu no bokko’ (The rise of the yellow race), Kokumin shinbun, 18 July
1895, p. 3.
81 Gollwitzer, Gelbe Gefahr, pp. 211 13.
Notes 179
82 ‘Toyo, Seiyo o osou no zu’ (A picture of the East attacking the West), Kokumin
shinbun, 8 January 1896, p. 3.
83 Gollwitzer, Gelbe Gefahr, p. 207.
84 ‘Sensho no kyoei ni hokoru bekarazu’ (We must not pride ourselves in the vain
glory of victory), Jiji shinpo, 30 June 1897 (FYZ 16:30 33).
85 Masuda Tomoko, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’ (The postwar management after the
Sino Japanese War), in Inoue Matsusada et al. (eds), Nihon rekishi taikei (An
outline of Japanese history), Tokyo: Yamakawa shuppan sha, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 732.
86 See, for example, Ito Hirobumi’s speech in the House of Peers, on 11 January
1896, on the subject of the ‘Administration after the Sino Japanese War’ (‘Nisshin
sengo no keiei’) in Ito Hirobumi, Ito ko enzetsu shu (A collection of Marquis
Ito’s speeches), Tokyo: Nippo sha, 1899; Ito ko zenshu, Vol. 2, pp. 46 50. Critics
such as Kuga Katsunan would use the term only with considerable irony.
87 See Yamagata Aritomo’s opinion paper on armament expansion, 15 April 1895
in Yamagata Aritomo iken sho, Oyama Azusa (ed.), Tokyo: Hara shobo, 1966,
pp. 228 40.
88 Masuda, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’, p. 738.
89 See ‘The British and Russian Naval Squadrons in the Far East’, The North
China Herald, 20 May 1896 (GSN 3:29 30); the numbers slightly varied, as
another chart in the North China Herald dated 22 May 1896 (ibid.) shows.
90 Hara, ‘Gunji teki shiten kara mita Nisshin senso’, pp. 94 95
91 Masuda, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’, p. 738.
92 Iguchi Kazuki, ‘Nichiro senso’ (The Russo Japanese War), in Iguchi Kazuki (ed.),
Nisshin Nichiro senso (The Sino Japanese and the Russo Japanese War), Tokyo:
Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1994, p. 76. See also Paine, Sino Japanese War, p. 327.
93 For Japan’s military long term strategy, see I. Hata, ‘Continental Expansion,
1905 41’, in Peter Duus (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 6: The
Twentieth Century, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988,
pp. 271 76.
94 Masuda, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’, p. 738 fn. 4, with further references; Iguchi,
’Nichiro senso’, p. 75.
95 Masuda, ‘ Nisshin sengo keiei’, pp. 738 39, fn. 4, 7.
96 Iguchi, ‘Nichiro senso’, p. 78.
97 For the original distribution as planned by Matsukata, see Masuda, ‘Nisshin
sengo keiei’, 739, fn. 8, with further references.
98 Ibid., ‘ Nisshin sengo keiei’, p. 750, fn. 12; however, Iguchi, ‘Nichiro senso’, p. 78,
gives an average of 40 50% of the annual expenditure.
99 See Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 307;
Gregor Schöllgen, Das Zeitalter des Imperialismus (The age of Imperialism), 4th
revised edn, München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000, p. 82.
100 See Niall Ferguson, ‘Public Finance and National Security: the Domestic Origins
of the First World War Revisited’, Past and Present, No. 142 (February 1994),
p. 154, Table 2: Britain 42.9 per cent; France 30 per cent; Germany 29.4 per cent.
101 On this phase of Korean abstention, see Duus, Abacus and the Sword, pp. 103 33.
102 Ibid., pp. 108 12.
103 ‘Corea’, The North China Herald, 21 February 1896 (GSN 3:10).
104 Shinobu, Nihon gaiko shi 1853 1972, Vol. 1, pp. 188 91.
105 On the occupation of Taiwan between May and November 1895 and the anti
Japanese guerilla war, see Fujimura, Nisshin senso, pp. 194 202.
106 Uchimura, ‘A Retrospect’, Yorozu choho, 14 16 December 1897, in Uchimura
Kanzo zenshu, Vol. 5, p. 194.
107 ‘Japan: Japan and the Chinese Crisis’, North China Herald, 4 July 1900 (GSN
3:232). For another example, see ‘Giwadan hi to Taiwan seiban’ (The Boxer
bandits and the Taiwan aborigines), Tokyo Asahi shinbun, 15 June 1900, p. 2.
180 Notes
108 Mark R. Peattie, ‘The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895 1945’, in Peter Duus
(ed.): The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 6: The Twentieth Century, Cam
bridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 229 30, with further
references.
109 Hobsbawm, Age of Empire, p. 307.
110 See the Kanpo [Official Gazette], 28 March 1896 and 30 December 1898, in
Nakayama Yasumasa et al. (eds), Shinbun shusei Meiji hennen shi (A Meiji
chronicle through newspaper sources), Tokyo: Zaisei keizai gakkai, 1934 36, Vol. 9,
pp. 389 90; Vol. 10, p. 330.
111 Iguchi, ‘Nichiro senso’, p. 79; Mark Metzler, Lever of Empire: The International
Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan, Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2006, p. 31.
112 Ibid., p. 32; Hugh T. Patrick, ‘External Equilibrium and Internal Convertibility:
Financial Policy in Meiji Japan’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 25, No. 2
(June 1965), p. 206.
113 Ibid., p. 207; Metzler, Lever of Empire, 30 32.
114 Takamura Naosuke, ‘Nisshin senji, sengo no zaisei to kinyu’ (Financial policy
and the money market during and after the Sino Japanese War), in Inoue Mat
susada et al. (eds), Nihon rekishi taikei (An outline of Japanese history), Tokyo:
Yamakawa shuppan sha, 1987, Vol. 4, p. 815.
115 Ibid., p. 821; Patrick, ‘External Equilibrium’, p. 209.
116 See, for example, Fukuzawa, ‘Oi ni gaishi o iru beshi’ (We must import large
amounts of foreign capital), Jiji shinpo, 1 January 1898 (FYZ 16:202 3); ‘Gaishi
yu’nyu no michi’ (How to import foreign capital), ibid., 29 May 1898 (FYZ
16:354 56).
117 ‘Gaishi yu’nyu no kiseikai’, Chuo shinbun, 5 May 1898, p. 2.
118 ‘I ko I haku no Yokohama yuki’ (Count Ito’s and Viscount Inoue’s visit to
Yokohama), Chuo shinbun, 12 June 1898, p. 2.
119 ‘Gaishi yu’nyu ni tsuite’ (On the import of foreign capital), Chuo shinbun, 17 June
1898, p. 2.
120 So, for example in late 1897, see Fukuzawa, ‘Jitsugyo ka no gunbi shukusho
undo ni tsuite’ (On the armament retrenchment agitation among entrepreneurs),
Jiji shinpo, 14 November 1897 (FYZ 16:151 53); ‘Spirit of the Vernacular Press’,
Japan Weekly Mail, 27 November 1897, pp. 558 59.
121 On Japan’s ‘Continental Strategy’ during the ‘postwar management’ years, see Li
Tingjiang, Nihon zaikai to kindai Chugoku: Shingai kakumei o chushin ni (The
Japanese business world and modern China around the time of the Chinese
Revolution 1911), 2nd edn, Tokyo: Ochanomizu shobo, 2003, pp. 83 95; Taka
mura, ‘Nisshin senji’, pp. 813 14. See also Duus, Abacus and Sword, pp. 135 6.
122 ‘Shinkoku no bunkatsu’ (The partition of China), Tokyo nichinichi shinbun, 25
October 1898, p. 2.
123 Thus, in the United States in the years 1890 1914, there was the myth of China
as unlimited market for American goods, despite obvious appearances to the
contrary, see Paul A. Varg, ‘The Myth of the China Market, 1890 1914’, The
American Historical Review, Vol. 73, No. 3 (February 1968), pp. 742 43; see also
Jürgen Osterhammel, China und die Weltgesellschaft: vom 18. Jahrhundert bis in
unsere Zeit (China and the international society: from the eighteenth century to
the present), Munich: C. H. Beck, 1989, p. 171 72.
124 See Okuma Shigenobu’s Toho kyokai speech in October 1898, Okuma haku
enzetsu shu (A collection of Count Okuma’s speeches), Waseda daigaku henshu bu
(ed.), Tokyo: Waseda daigaku, 1907, p. 29. For a more detailed discussion of this
speech see Chapter 4.
125 ‘Jinmin no taigai jigyo’ (Private enterprises abroad), Chuo shinbun, 20 April
1898, p. 1.
Notes 181
126 Akira Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992, p. 8; Peattie, ‘Japanese Colonial Empire’, p. 222; Hilary
Conroy, ’Lessons from Japanese Imperialism’, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 21,
No. 3/4 (1966), p. 336; Marius B. Jansen, ‘Japanese Views of China During the
Meiji Period’, in Albert Feuerwerker, Rhoads Murphey, and Mary C. Wright
(eds), Approaches to Modern Chinese History, Berkeley, CA: University of Cali
fornia Press, 1967, p. 187. With regard to social problems in domestic politics,
Carol Gluck has observed a similar reluctance among Meiji observers to talk
about economic factors, although they were not denied, either; see Japan’s
Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1985, pp. 29 30.
127 For an overview see George Akita, Foundations of Constitutional Government in
Modern Japan, 1868 1900, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967,
pp. 106 54.
128 Masuda, ‘Nisshin sengo keiei’, pp. 743 44.
129 Ibid., p. 746; Kuga Katsunan discusses the sudden change of the Jiyuto (and of
Ito Hirobumi as well) in ‘Seikai kongo no kikan’ (The marvelous spectacle of the
political world), Nippon, 27 July 1895 (KKZ 5:155 56).
130 On the beginning of this movement see ‘Atago kan yushikai’ (The Atago kan
group of activists), Kokumin shinbun, 18 June 1895, p. 2.
131 See Tokyo nichinichi shinbun and Jiji shinpo, 16 February 1896, in Nakayama,
Shinbun shusei Meiji hennen shi, Vol. 9, p. 374. The Diet was immediately sus
pended by imperial order from 15 24 February 1896. In the meantime, Yama
gata Aritomo put pressure on the leaders of the Kokuminto, so that the party
finally voted against its own motion on 25 February 1896.
132 ‘Gunbi kakucho to gaisei’ (Armament expansion and foreign policy), Nippon, 23
December 1898 (KKZ 6:183).
133 On the very real exhaustion which the people experienced after several rounds of
donations and funding through war bonds, see Lone, Japan’s First Modern War,
pp. 87 92.
134 See Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, pp. 26 35 for social critique; for civilization
critique in the late Meiji period, see Kano, Shihon shugi keiseiki, pp. 481 88,
515 30.
135 Gluck, Japan’s Modern Myths, p. 20.
136 ‘Kokumin no mahi’ (The paralysis of the nation), Chuo shinbun, 17 May 1897, in
Kotoku Shusui zenshu (The collected works of Kotoku Shusui), Kotoku Shusui
zenshu henshu iinkai (ed.), Tokyo: Meiji bunken, 1968 73, Vol. 1, pp. 230 32.
137 Ibid., pp. 231 32. The emphasis follows the original.
138 See ‘Sensho no kyoei ni hokoru bekarazu’ (We must not pride ourselves in the
vain glory of victory), FYZ 16:30 32.
139 According to the weekly digest of the Japan Weekly Mail, 4 December 1897,
pp. 586 87.
140 See Komatsu Midori, ‘Seisui no kiun’ (The rise and decline of nations), Taiyo,
Vol. 4, No. 18 (5 September 1898), pp. 7 11.
Conclusion
1 See Ian Nish, ‘China and the Russo Japanese War,’ International Studies (STICERD,
London School of Economics), 2004, p. 13.
2 William L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 2nd edn, New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1965, p. 704.
3 See for example I. Hata, ‘Continental Expansion, 1905 41,’ in Peter Duus (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 6: The Twentieth Century, Cambridge,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 275; Marius B. Jansen, ‘Japanese
Views of China During the Meiji Period,’ in Albert Feuerwerker, Rhoads Mur
phey and Mary C. Wright (eds), Approaches to Modern Chinese History, Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1967,’ p. 188; Hilary Conroy, ‘Lessons from
Japanese Imperialism,’ Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (1966), p. 337.
4 Duus, ‘Japan’s Informal Empire in China, 1895 1937: An Overview,’ in Duus,
Peter et al. (eds), The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895 1937, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. xxii xxiii; for the European view see
Langer, Diplomacy, pp. 681, 684.
5 Duus, ‘Japan’s Informal Empire,’ pp. xxii xxiii.
6 Jansen, ‘Japanese Views,’ p. 188; Douglas R. Reynolds, ‘Training Young China
Hands: Toa Dobun shoin and its Precursors, 1886 1945,’ in Peter Duus, Ramon
H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (eds), The Japanese Informal Empire in China,
1895 1937 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 211.
7 See, however, S.C.M. Paine, The Sino Japanese War of 1894 1895: Perceptions,
Power and Primacy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 4, 298 99.
8 On this consequence, see Immanuel Hsu, ‘Late Ch’ing foreign relations, 1866 1905,’
in John K. Fairbank and Kwang Ching Liu (eds), The Cambridge History of
China, Vol. 2: Late Ch’ing, 1800 1911, Part 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978, pp. 115, 129.
208 Notes
9 See Hirano Ken’ichiro’s assessment of late Meiji Sino Japanese relations as
quoted in Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898 1912: the Xinzheng Revolution and
Japan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, p. xviii.
10 Shiga Sukegoro, ‘Shina ikan’ (How is the situation in China?), part 2, Tokyo
nichinichi shinbun, 28 July 1898.
11 For a similar conclusion, see Li Tingjiang, ‘Zhang Zhidong and his Military
Advisors: a Preliminary Analysis of Modern Japan’s China Policy,’ translated by
Douglas Howland, in Joshua Fogel (ed.), Late Qing China and Meiji Japan:
Political and Cultural Aspects, Norwalk, CT: Eastbridge, 2004, pp. 54 55.
12 For Korea’s gradual effacement as an autonomous entity from political dis
course, see Alexis Dudden, Japan’s Colonization of Korea: Discourse and Power,
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005; Wolfgang Seifert, ‘Japan
Großmacht, Korea Kolonie völkerrechtliche Entwicklungen vor und nach
dem Vertrag von Portsmouth 1905’ (Great power Japan, Korea the colony
developments in international law before and after the Portsmouth Treaty 1905),
in Maik Hendrik Sprotte, Wolfgang Seifert and Heinz Dietrich Löwe (eds),
Der Russisch Japanische Krieg 1904/5: Anbruch einer neuen Zeit? (The Russo
Japanese War 1904/5: the dawn of a new era?), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007,
pp. 55 82.
13 See Paula Harrell, Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers,
1895 1905, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992, p. 211.
14 See F. G. Notehelfer, Kotoku Shusui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1971, pp. 55 87; R. Loftus, ‘The Inversion of Pro
gress: Taoka Reiun’s Hibunmei ron,’ Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 40, No. 2
(Summer 1985), pp. 191 208; Zachmann, ‘Blowing Up a Double Portrait in Black
and White: The Concept of Asia in the Writings of Fukuzawa Yukichi and
Okakura Tenshin,’ positions: east asia cultures critique, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Fall, 2007),
pp. 355 62.
15 Stefan Tanaka, Japan’s Orient: Rendering Pasts into History. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1993, p. 108.
16 See for example Naito Konan’s conversations with Chinese intellectuals during a
trip to China in 1899 as described by Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and Sinology: The
Case of Naito Konan (1866 1934), Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian
Studies, Harvard University, 1984, pp. 91 110.
17 See Watanabe Hiroshi, Higashi Ajia no oken to shiso (Confucianism and After:
Political Thought in Early Modern East Asia), Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppansha,
1997, pp. 248 57.
18 Duus, ‘Japan’s Informal Empire,’ pp. xi xii; Ian Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy,
1869 1942: Kasumigaseki to Miyakezaka, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1977, p. 88.
19 For a more detailed overview of Sino Japanese relations until 1945, see Marius B.
Jansen, Japan and China: from War to Peace, 1894 1972, Chicago, IL: Rand
McNally College Publishing Co., 1975; Akira Iriye, China and Japan in the Global
Setting, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 41 88; Ian Nish,
‘An Overview of Relations between China and Japan, 1895 1945,’ in Christopher
Howe (ed.), China and Japan: History, Trends, and Prospects, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1996, pp. 23 45. For case studies of Chinese attitudes toward Japan, see Y. Lu,
Re understanding Japan: Chinese Perspectives, 1895 1945, Honolulu: Association
for Asian Studies and University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
20 John A. White, The Diplomacy of the Russo Japanese War, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1964, p. 342; Nish, ‘China and the Russo Japanese War,’ p. 16;
21 Hsu, ‘Late Ch’ing foreign relations,’ p. 141.
22 Harrell, Sowing the Seeds, pp. 216 17; for Japan’s contribution, see also Marius B.
Jansen, ‘Japan and the Revolution of 1911,’ in John K. Fairbank and Kwang Ching
Notes 209
Liu (eds), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 2: Late Ch’ing, 1800 1911, Part 2,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 339 74.
23 See M. Ikei, ‘Japan’s Response to the Chinese Revolution of 1911,’ Journal of
Asian Studies Vol. 25, No. 2 (February 1966), pp. 213 27.
24 Hata, ‘Continental Expansion,’ p. 279.
25 For example, in February 1913 the Taiyo devoted a series of interviews to the
question: ‘Division or Protection? The problem of a fundamental policy for the
Chinese continent’ (‘Bunkatsu ka hozen ka: Tai Shina tairiku no konpon seisaku
mondai,’ Taiyo, Vol. 19, No. 11, pp. 99 131); among the interviews is one with
Shiraiwa Ryuhei (pp. 108 13); on Japanese reactions to the Chinese Revolution
see Nozawa Yutaka, ‘Chugoku kakumei, Roshia kakumei e no shiso teki taio’
(The intellectual response to the Chinese and the Russian Revolution), in Furuta
Hikaru et al. (eds), Kindai Nihon shakai shiso shi, Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1971, Vol. 2,
pp. 39 69.
26 See Hata, ‘Continental expansion,’ pp. 277 82; Nish, Japanese Foreign Policy,
pp. 93 103.
27 See comments of the Tokyo nichinichi shinbun and Taiyo as quoted by Saneto
Keishu, Nitchu hi yuko no rekishi (The history of Sino Japanese unfriendly rela
tions), Tokyo: Asahi shinbunsha, 1973, pp. 54, 60; see also Y. Kato, ‘Japanese
Perceptions of China and the United States, 1914 19,’ translated by Roger Brown,
in Sven Saaler and Viktor Koschmann (eds), Pan Asianism in Modern Japanese
History, London, New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 67 81.
28 Albert d’Anethan, The d’Anethan Dispatches from Japan, 1894 1910, Georg
Alexander Lensen (ed.), Tallahassee, FL: The Diplomatic Press, 1967, p. 45.
29 See Nish, Japanese Diplomacy, p. 156 on Foreign Minister Shidehara Kikujiro’s
East Asia policy in the 1920s.
30 Duus, ‘Japan’s Informal Empire,’ pp. xxiii, xxviii.
31 Nish, ‘China and the Russo Japanese War,’ p. 13.
32 See Kita Hiroaki, Nitchu kaisen: Gun homukyoku bunsho kara mita kyokoku itchi
taisei e no michi (The beginning of the Sino Japanese War: the road to the
national unity system as seen from documents of the Army Legal Affairs Bureau),
Tokyo: Chûô shinsho, 1994, pp. 8 10.
33 See Ben Ami Shillony, ‘Friend or foe: the ambivalent images of the U.S. and
China in wartime Japan,’ in James W. White, Michio Umegaki and Thomas R. H.
Havens (eds), The Ambivalence of Nationalism: Modern Japan between East and
West, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990, pp. 197 207.
34 See, for example, the Sinologue Kanzaki Kiyoshi 1936 as quoted by Reynolds,
China, 1898 1912, p. 7.
35 Shillony, ‘Friend or foe,’ pp. 200 204.
36 See Iriye, China and Japan, p. 78.
37 Kawai Tatsuo, Hatten Nihon no mokuhyo (1938) as translated by Nish, Japanese
Foreign Policy, p. 304.
38 Hisashi Owada, ‘Japan, International Law, and the International Community,’ in
Ando Nisuke (ed.), Japan and International Law: Past, Present and Future.
International Symposium to Mark the Centennial of the Japanese Association of
International Law, The Hague: Kluwer, 1999, p. 370.
39 For a brief overview of Sino Japanese relations after the war, see Jansen, Japan
and China, pp. 447 509; Iriye, China and Japan, 91 135, Iriye, ‘Chinese Japanese
Relations, 1895 1990,’ in Christopher Howe (ed.), China and Japan: History,
Trends, and Prospects, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. 46 59.
40 Harrell, Sowing the Seeds, pp. 221 22: ‘The present scene and its players bear an
uncanny likeness to turn of the century counterparts.’ For overviews and analyses
of current Sino Japanese relations, see Glenn D. Hook et al. (eds), Japan’s Inter
national Relations: Politics, Economics and Security, 2nd edn, London: Routledge,
210 Notes
2005, pp. 190 202; M. Söderberg (ed.), Chinese Japanese relations in the Twenty first
Century: Complementarity and Conflict, London: 2002; Caroline Rose, Interpreting
History in Sino Japanese Relations: A Case Study in Political Decision Making,
London: Routledge, 1998; Caroline Rose, Sino Japanese Relations: Facing the
Past, Looking to the Future? London: Routledge, 2005; for Chinese perspectives of
Japan after 1982, see Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan, Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1989.
Bibliography
Primary sources
(Note: the following bibliography lists only those newspaper editorials and
articles that are not already included in the collected works of individual
authors.)
Secondary sources
Note: Keywords refer to Japan unless otherwise specified; entries are selective,
especially for periodicals and countries.
alliances 43 44, 58, 86, 136; see also Bunmei ron no gairyaku (Outline of a
Anglo Japanese Alliance, Britain, Theory of Civilization) 18
China (role of, in Japanese ‘brush talk’ (hitsudan) 21
discourse), Russia, race/racism
‘Amur massacres’ 142 Chemulpo, Treaty of 16
Anglo Japanese Alliance 147 48 China, as cultural concept 10
Anhui suhuabao 204n52 China, domestic developments: unrest
Aoki Shuzo 126, 130 31, 201n9 65, 115, 117, 129 30; reforms 90 92,
Arao Sei 75, 185n63 152; see also Chinese Revolution
Ariga Nagao 134 35 (1911)
armament expansion 16 18, 38, 46 49, China, role of, in Japanese discourse:
52, 54, 178n79 ideological mirror 4, 40 41;
Asahina Chisen 37, 107 Orientalist symbol 26 29, 95, 151;
Austro Prussian War 66 67, 184n54, ‘common enemy of the world’ 39;
186n78 threat 23, 25, 40 41, 101 2; ineligible
for alliance 25, 28, 59 60, 69 70;
Bakumatsu era 11; as model/metaphor ‘Sick Man of the Far East’ 39;
for China 78 79, 87, 94 95, 102, 138 ‘Poland of the East’ 76, 79; ‘student’
Baoguo hui (Society for the Protection 79 81; ‘friend’ 2, 4, 25, 34, 39, 66 67,
of the Nation) 97 77 78, 86, 117 20, 134 35, 156;
Baring, Sir Evelyn (Lord Cromer) 27 ‘protectorate’ 85 86, 120 22, 123,
Beijing Conference (1905) 152, 155, 159 135; ‘weak regulator’ 122; effacement
Beresford, Admiral Lord Charles of 117, 135, 138; ungrateful friend
197n136 150 52, 160
Blagoveshchensk 141 China, international relations see China
Boxer Incident 128 32 policy, Britain, France, Germany,
Boxer Protocol 132, 146 Korea, Russia
Britain: Japanese relations with, 32, 47, China policy: government’s 58 60,
49, 58, 60, 130, 144 45; as alliance and 110 17, 131 32; partition/division of
co operation partner 44, 58, 70, 73 74, China (Shina bunkatsu) 56, 76 77,
86, 120, 124, 139; as ‘most/truly civilized 121, 147, 155, 159; preservation of
power’ 44, 84, 86, 115; and China China (Shina hozen) 56, 66, 77 79,
55 58, 62, 74, 90, 115 16, 122, 133, 147; 85 86, 90, 117 26, 147; assessment
see also Anglo Japanese Alliance 87 88, 155 57
bunmei kaika (‘civilization’) 168n61; see Chinese Japanese Treaty of Amity
also civilization (1871) 14
Index 233
Chinese Japanese Treaty of Peace and politics’ (chozen shugi), party rule
Friendship (1978) 162 (sekinin naikaku ‘responsible cabinet’)
Chinese in Japan: laborers 22 23, 40 41,
156; officials 118, 152, 156, 195n101; economy 49 50; expansion into China
students 3, 59, 74, 78, 80, 118, 132, 50 51, 59, 111
155 56, 158 59, 195n101 eight legged essay (bagu wen) 91, 93,
Chinese culture, in Meiji Japan 20 22 192n30
Chinese poems (kanshi) 21
‘Chinese question’ (Shina mondai) 4, 67, Europe, as cultural concept 18 20
85 86, 100 Far Eastern Crisis 55 57
Chinese Revolution (1911) 89, 92, 159 Far Eastern question 2, 31, 73, 85,
‘chivalry’ (gikyo) 24 25, 34, 62, 83, 98, 188n129
108 finances 47 50, see also taxes
Chongli 198n142 Fish, Hamilton 14
Choshu (as model) 94 foreign policy 48, 57 58; see also China
Chuo Shinbun 5, 51, 62, 96; see also policy, Britain, France, Germany,
Kawasaki Shizan, Ooka Ikuzo Korea, Russia
civilization: Chinese, in Japan 10 11, France 26, 28, 32, 47, 61; as partner 74,
20 21; Western ‘standard of,’ 4 5, 84 86; and China 55, 57, 149; see
18 20, 60, 68, 115, 136; transition/ also Sino French War
transference from Chinese to Western Franco Prussian War 39, 184n54
standard 11, 18, 158; competition of, Frankfurter Zeitung 72, 145, 195n106
19, 44 46, 68 69, 136; ‘Walking fukoku kyohei (‘making the country rich
Match of,’ between China and Japan and the army strong’) 82, 196n125
20, 104; Sino Japanese War as Fukushima Yasumasa 136 38, 142
struggle between old and new, 34; Fukuzawa Yukichi 5 6, 18, 80, 172n115,
Japan as ‘truly/more civilized’ (than 189n146; on society and domestic
western powers) 11, 44, 86, 136 42, politics 54, 107; on foreign policy 24,
154; critique of 158 44, 46; on ‘leaving Asia’ (datsua) 27;
civilizing mission (mission civilisatrice) on war with China 25 26, 175n16;
5, 15, 88, 120, 135, 154 and Far Eastern Crisis 56, 61 62, 66,
Cixi, Empress Dowager 105, 112; and 70, 75 81, 88; on China’s strength
Hundred Days 89 92, 101, 113 14; in and progress 26, 40, 78 81, 89, 102 3
Japanese press 95 96, 114, 119; and
Boxer Incident 129, 132 gashin shotan (‘sleeping on firewood
competition see civilization, race and licking bile’) 37 39
Confucianism and Confucianists 10 11, Gen’yosha 25
21, 79; Meiji critique of, 29, 76, 94, Germany 32, 47, 61, 120, 159; as
187n99 (‘uncivilized’) antagonist 61 64,
81 83, 86 87, 141; and China 55 57,
Dagu 132, 134, 137, 139, 144 147; see also Wilhelm II
Dalian 56, 62, 155, 160 Gibbon, Edward 195n106
d’Anethan, Albert 36, 160 gold standard 49 50
Date Munenari 14 ‘Golden Decade’ (D. R. Reynolds) 2,
Datsua ron 27, 75 59, 157
Datsua kai (Leaving Asia Society) 28 Gong, Prince 93, 99, 113
dobun doshu see ‘same culture, same Grant, Ulysses 16
race’ Great Leap Forward 104
Dobun kai (Common Culture ‘Greater East Asia Co Prosperity
Association) 67, 75, 81, 125; and Sphere’ (Dai Toa kyoei ken) 123, 161
Chinese reformers 104 5, 115, Guangxu emperor 59, 90 93, 104 5,
198n162; see also Toa dobun kai 111, 113, 131 32; in Japanese press
domestic politics 51 53, 106 10; see also 95 96, 98, 100, 112, 114, 118 19
‘hanbatsu/oligarchic rule,’ ‘non partisan Guowenbao 74, 187n91
234 Index
Hague Peace Conference, first (1899) Jiaozhou 55 56, 90, 159; Japanese
60, 136; and Russian proposal for discussion of German occupation
disarmament 123 24 and lease of 60, 62, 63 64
‘hanbatsu/oligarchic rule’ 53 54, 67, 81, Jiji shinpo 5 6, 44, 61, 93, 107 8; and
83, 107 8, 195n109 China/Chinese 6, 23, 27, 32 33, 80 81,
Hara Takashi 23, 40 164n24; see also Fukuzawa Yukichi
Hayashi Gonsuke 60, 113 Jingzhong Ribao 148
Hayashi Tadasu 6, 44 Jiyuto 32, 52 53, 84
He Ruzhang 15 ‘just war’ (gisen) 24 25, 34, 36, 84
Heidelberger Tageblatt 71, 186n78
Hibiya riots 6 Kaneko Kentaro 105
Hicks Beach, Sir Michael 144, 182n8 Kang Guangren 198n155
Hinohara Shozo 18 19, 27 28 Kanghwa Treaty 16
Huang Zunxian 17, 91, 98, 115, Kang Liang group 96, 101, 105, 113 14
192n28 Kangxi emperor 11
Hundred Days Reform 90 92 Kang Youwei 89, 91, 93, 96, 104 5;
Japanese attitudes toward, 92 93,
Iwakura Tomomi 14 96 101, 114; conversation with
Imaizumi Ippyo 172n115 Konoe Atsumaro 104 5; meeting
Imo mutiny 16 with Ito Hirobumi 114; rescue and
imperialism 16, 61, 63 64, 81 82, 122, exile 115 17
155; convergence 56, 64, 88 Kapsin (Koshin) Incident 16 17, 25, 33
Imperial Rescript on Education 21 Kato Takaaki 44
Inoue Kaoru 50, 57 Katsura Taro 5, 53, 136, 147
Inoue Kowashi 17, 21 Kawakami Soroku 59
international law 5, 12, 4, 34, 36, 55, Kawasaki Shizan 94 97, 104, 110
63, 81, 175n24; and rescue of Chinese Kenseito 52 53, 90, 106 8, 110 11; see
reformers 115 16, 199n169; and also Okuma Cabinet
Boxer Incident 131, 134 35, 140 41; Ketteler, Clemens von 129
Japanese critique of, 76 77, 82, 87 Kim Ok kyun 16, 25, 33
intervention 5, 43, 90, 117, 120 21, 146, Knackfuss painting 46, 62, 183n39,
154; Sino Japanese War as, 34; Boxer 205n88
expedition as, 128, 132 36; see also Koa kai (Raising Asia Society) 28
Tripartite Intervention Kobayashi Kiyochika 175n29
Inukai Tsuyoshi 194n86 Kokubu Seigai 21
Itagaki Taisuke 52, 106 8 Kokugaku 11
Italy, Japan compared with 109 10 Kokumin Shinbun 5 6, 41 46, 54, 134,
Ito Hirobumi 5, 16, 21, 130, 147; and 144; on China 66 67, 71, 151; see
Sino Japanese War 32, 34, 37; and also Tokutomi Soho
postwar management 179n86; Kokusai ho gakkai (Japanese Society of
domestic politics 52 53, 111; International Law) 135
interwar foreign policy 48, 57 58, kokusui hozon (‘preservation of national
155; journey to Beijing 59, 90, essence’) 21 22
110 14; rescue of Chinese reformers Komura Jutaro 53, 59, 147, 152, 155,
115 17 200n192
Itsubi kai (1895 Society) 75 Konoe Atsumaro 30, 42, 63, 85,
200n192; Taiyo article and (racial)
jakuniku kyoshoku (‘the strong eat the Pan Asianism 56, 66 73, 75; attitude
weak’/survival of the fittest) 24, toward Chinese reform/reformers
76 77, 83 104 6, 116 17, 119; on Shina hozen
The Japan Times 148 (preservation of China) 125 26; see
Japan Weekly Mail 64 65, 71, 165n28, also Dobun kai, Toa dobun kai
171n97, 184n52 Korea 8 9, 25 26, 67, 71, 148 50, 157,
Jiaobin lu kangyi 91 159; Sino Japanese rivalry in, 15 17,
Index 235
31 34, 120 21; Russo Japanese Mitsubishi 50
rivalry in, 48, 58, 61, 80, 146 48 Mitsui 50
Kotoku Shusui 5 6, 53 54, 110, 136, 158 mixed residence (naichi zakkyo) 13, 50,
Kuga Katsunan 21, 23, 162, 200n192; 72, 195n108; esp. with Chinese 23,
position in society/political world 6, 40 41
81, 126, 146; on domestic politics 53, Miyake Setsurei 21, 37 40, 108, 126,
108, 110, 179n86; on Sino Japanese 177n60
War 33 34, 36; and Tripartite Miyazaki Toten 75
Intervention 37, 43; on Japan’s Far Monroe Doctrine 84; Japanese or
Eastern policy 56, 61 62, 66, 81 88; ‘Asian,’ 85, 189n142
on Chinese reforms and progress 87, Mori Arinori 105
89, 94, 103 4, 152, 194n86; on Boxer Motoda Nagazane 21
expedition 145 46; on China’s Mutsu Munemitsu 29 30, 32, 35
position during and after the Russo
Japanese War 150 52, 206n97 naichi zakkyo see mixed residence
Kurino Shin’ichiro 72, 130 31 Naito Konan 36, 92, 94, 100, 119, 158,
Kuroda Kiyotaka 57 176n35
Kuroiwa Ruiko 6 Nakamura Keiu (Masanao) 20 21
Nakamura Shingo 63 64, 71 72
Li Hongzhang: and early Meiji Japan Nakanishi Ushiro 41, 177n62
14 17; during Sino Japanese War 32, national identity, self definitions of:
40; during Hundred Days 93, 96, 116, ‘only civilized’/advanced nation/
199n165; during Boxer Incident 129, pioneer of progress in East Asia 4,
132 66, 87, 102, 157 58; ‘leader of the
Li Shengduo 207n113 East’ (Toyo no meishu) 25, 46; ‘center
Liang Qichao 94, 96, 101, 192n28; of great powers’ 41; ‘maritime King
Japanese attitudes toward 96, 98, of East Asia’ 42; ‘master in the East’
100 101, 105, 113 14; rescue and (Todo no shu) 86 87, 189n146;
exile 115, 117 ‘Second Spain’ or Italy 109 10;
Liao Shouheng 198n142 ‘truly/more civilized’ (than western
Liaodong Peninsula 31 32, 64, 71, 78; powers) 11, 44, 86, 136 42, 154; see
retrocession of 32, 37, 44, 86, 125 also China, role of, in Japanese
Lin Xu 114 discourse
Liu Guangdi 114 Natsume Soseki 21, 103, 205n84
Liu Kunyi 59, 129 New Order in East Asia 161
The New York Times 93, 116, 198n144
Mahan, Alfred Thayer 40, 45, 102 Nie Shicheng 112
Manchuria: and Russia 129, 142; Nippon 6, 21, 123 24, 140 41, 165n25;
Russo Japanese confrontation over on China/Chinese 29, 102, 126,
146 48; and China 149 51; and 150 52; see also Kuga Katsunan,
Japan 149 50, 155, 159 60 Miyake Setsurei
Manchurian Incident 160 Nipponjin 21, 100 101
Manchus/Manchu court 10 11, 94 95, Nippon kurabu (Japan Club) 135,
97, 114, 119, 122, 151 203n30
Marumaru chinbun 20, 103 Nippon shugi (‘Japanism’) 22
Matsukata Masayoshi 52, 57, 179n97 Nishi Tokujiro 130
May Fourth Movement 160 Nishimura Hiroshi 187n91
Meiji Constitution 17, 105, 152 Nishimura Tenshu 30
Meiji Restoration 11, 14, 46, 103, 158; Nogi Maresuke 20
and China 78, 89, 104, 109, 112, 114, ‘non partisan politics’ (chozen shugi) 67,
152, 158; ‘Second,’ 92, 106 9 110, 119
military 47, 53, 83, 110, 142 44; and The North China Herald 26, 45, 48 49,
China 59, 65, 118, 136, 155, 159 60 116, 135 36, 139 45
Min, Korean Queen 48, 95 Novoe Vremya 71
236 Index
Oi Kentaro 25 73 74; racial competition/antagonism
Oishi Masami 188n129 60, 67 68, 73 74, 182n5; see also ‘same
Okinawa see Ryukyu kingdom culture, same race’, ‘Yellow Peril’
Okuma Cabinet 52 53, 98, 107 10, 120,
123, 188n129; attitude toward Ronglu 112 13
Chinese reformers 111 Rosebery, Lord 2
‘Okuma Doctrine’ 123 Rothschilds 50
Okuma Shigenobu 38, 73, 108, 125; Russia 13, 32, 47, 58, 70 71; as
foreign policy 70, 111; on China alliance partner 37, 43 44; as
policy 65 66, 122 25; and Chinese (‘uncivilized’) antagonist 34, 61 64,
reformers 90, 112, 115; see also 80 83, 85 86, 127, 136 42, 149; and
Okuma Cabinet China 15, 55 57, 59 60, 75, 96, 114,
Ooka Ikuzo 5, 111 16, 142 43 149; see also Korea, Manchuria,
Open Door notes 147 Russo Japanese War
opium smoking 23, 172n115 Russo Japanese War 147 48; Chinese
‘oriental history’ (toyo shi) 3, 158, neutrality during, 149
164n9 Ryukyu kingdom 9, 15, 25, 77
Orientalism (Western and Japanese)
26 29, 30, 70, 95, 151 Saigo Takamori 20
Osaka Incident 25 Saigo Tsugumichi 15, 47, 57
Ottoman Empire 18 19, 39, 169n63, Saionji Kinmochi 196n122
188n129 ‘same culture, same race’ (dobun doshu)
Ouchi Chozo 68, 173n134 4, 21, 56, 59, 66, 156; see also Pan
Oyama Iwao 57 Asianism
Ozaki Yukio 39, 52, 176n51, 200n189 Satsuma 48, 94
Schmitt, Carl 26
Pan Asianism 4, 25, 46, 56, 67 68, 74 75, ‘scramble for concessions’ 56 57, 93,
81, 161; contemporary critique of 28, 155 57
59 60, 68 70; assessment of 75, 88, Shandong province 56, 76, 129, 159 60
156; see also ‘same culture, same race’ Shang Qiheng 207n113
party rule (sekinin naikaku Shashi incident 65, 79, 85 86
‘responsible cabinet’) 52 54, 106 7, Shenbao 164n24, 194n83, 199n169
110 Shiga Shigetaka 21, 52
Poland, China compared with 76, 79 Shiga Sukegoro 93, 97 101, 108,
Port Arthur 31 32, 37, 141, 155, 160; 156 57, 193n62
Russian occupation and lease of Shimonoseki, Treaty of 31 32, 35 37,
56 57, 62, 64 46, 50 51, 62, 176n38
Portsmouth, negotiations and Treaty of Shina bunkatsu (partition/division of
151 52, 154 China) see China policy
‘postwar management’ (sengo keiei) Shina hozen (preservation of China) see
32, 38, 46 54, 83: general China policy
characteristics 53 Shinpoto 52, 62, 64 65, 84, 188n129
press and journalism: affiliations 5 6; Shiraishi Yoshie 139, 142, 144, 203n46
censorship 37, 142; international Shiraiwa Ryuhei 104, 185n63, 209n25
news coverage 92 93; war journalism shishi (Bakumatsu braves) 24 25, 51,
133 34, 142; Japanese support of, in 83, 98, 127, 138
China 74 75 Shiwubao 74, 98, 194n80
public discourse 6 7 Sinocentrism (Chinese and Japanese)
9 11, 22, 29 30, 151, 157
Qianlong emperor 95 Sino French War 18, 25 26, 33 34
Qingdao 56 Sino Japanese War (1894 95) 31 35
Quanxue pian (Exhortation to study) 91 Sino Japanese War (1937 45) 160 61
race/racism 4, 45 46, 85, 130 31, society: during ‘postwar management’
142 43, 150; racial alliance 67 73, 53 54, 58; social problems (shakai
Index 237
mondai) 4, 181n126; social critique 125 27; and Chinese reformers 101,
103, 158; 104 5, 116 17, 119, 194n86; and
Soejima Taneomi 25, 167n31 Chinese language newspapers
sonno joi (‘revere the emperor and expel 187n91 92
all foreigners’) 129, 137 38 Toa kai (East Asia Association) 81,
South African War (Boer War) 130, 125; and Chinese reformers 100 101,
133, 138, 145, 202n23 115, 194n86, 198n162; see also Toa
Spain, Japan compared with 109, 196n125 dobun kai
Spanish American War 84, 109 Toho kyokai (Oriental Association) 38,
Spencer, Herbert 24, 105, 195n108 123, 200n192
‘stimulus’ (shigeki) 4, 41, 54, 65, 103, 108; Tokugawa period 8 11; see also
applied to China 87, 99, 103 4, 161 Bakumatsu era
Strauch, Hermann 63 64, 71, 184n41 Tokutomi Soho 5, 6, 37; on Chinese 40 41
strong foreign policy advocates/ Tokyo Asahi shinbun 43 44, 110, 149
movement (taigai koha) 24, 67, 81, Tokyo nichinichi shinbun 5, 62, 80, 93,
126 27, 142; and China 4, 157; esp. 107 10, 123 24, 200n189; on China/
Far Eastern Crisis 62, 64 65, 154; Chinese 20, 62, 117 26, 133 34; see
and Russo Japanese War 146 47, also Asahina Chisen, Shiga Sukegoro
149; translation of term 171n97 Tonghak rebellion 25, 31, 33, 120
Sugiyama Akira 129 30 Tongzhi emperor and Restoration
Sun Jianai 99, 199n165 25, 95
Sun Yat Sen 101, 116, 199n169 Toyabe Sentaro (Shuntei) 67
Toyotomi Hideyoshi 8, 121
Taigai doshi kai (Society of like minded treaties, ‘unequal’, and revision of,
fellows in foreign affairs) 52, 64 65, 12 13, 14, 21 o172
81, 188n129 Tripartite Intervention 32, 36 39; Far
taigai koha see strong foreign policy Eastern Crisis as ‘second,’ 61
advocates/movement Twenty One Demands 159
Taiwan 15, 32, 42, 48 49, 58, 61,
121 22; see also Taiwan expedition Uchimura Kanzo 6, 48 49, 205n84; on
Taiwan expedition 14 15 war with China 27, 34, 36, 42,
Taiyo 5 6, 41, 54, 94, 103; on China/ 175n18
Chinese 39, 70, 209n25; see also United States 12 14, 70, 84 86, 130,
Konoe Atsumaro, Takayama Chogyu 158, 160 61; and China 57, 147, 149,
Takayama Chogyu 21 22, 56, 66, 81, 161 62, 180n123
109, 170n81; on racial alliances 73 75
Takekoshi Yosaburo 109, 196n122 Vladivostok 183n32
Tan Sitong 91, 114
Taoka Reiun 6, 42, 67, 158; and Boxer Wang Fengzao 32
Incident 134, 142 44 Wang Kangnian 105
Tarui Tokichi 25 Wang Wenshao 99
taxes 38, 49 50, 52, 83 Wang Zhao 115
Tei Nagamasa 115, 187n91 war, and legal nature of Boxer
Tenchijin 69 70 expedition, 136 36
Terao Toru 202n28 Weihaiwei 31 32, 57, 62, 64 65, 182n11
Tianjin 15 16, 74, 90 91, 112; during Wen Tingshi 198n160
Boxer Incident 129, 132, 137, 140 43, Weng Tonghe 93, 96, 99
146 Wilhelm II, German emperor 46, 62,
Tianjin, Treaty of (Li Ito Convention) 134, 141, 184n39
16 17, 31, 33 World War I 48 49, 159 60
Tianzhuangtai, battle of 35
The Times 37, 93, 122, 130 31, 195n108 Yadong shibao 74 75
Toa dobun kai (East Asia Common Yamagata Aritomo: and domestic
Culture Association) 67, 73, 118, politics 52 53, 107, 110, 181n131;
238 Index
and foreign policy 17, 46, 57, 116, Konan, Shiga Sukegoro, Taoka
148; rejection of alliance with Reiun, Uchimura Kanzo
China 60 Yuan Shikai 90, 91, 112, 159, 205n87
Yan Fu 74
Yang Rui 114 Zaize 207n113
Yang Shenxiu 100, 194n81, 198n155 Zhang Binglin 198n160
Yangcun, occupation of 141, 204n50 Zhang Yinhuan 115, 198n142
Yano Fumio 59, 80, 135 Zhang Yuanji 98
‘Yellow Peril’ 45 46, 68, 71, 130 31, Zhang Zhidong 91, 129; and Kang
149 50 Liang group 101, 116 17, 193n59;
Yokoi Tadanao 173n130, 175n31 and Japan 30, 59, 80, 205n87;
Yorozu choho 5 6, 24, 98, 106, 108 10, Japanese attitudes toward 78, 96, 105
136, 165n28; on China/Chinese 101, Zhixinbao 76, 188n123, 197n136
136; see also Kotoku Shusui, Naito Zongli yamen 91, 93, 98, 198n142,
198n148